winstoneverlast.com
← All the songs Haiga in song · No. 03

Words, Sounds, and Silence

The artist’s life — the making, the doubt, the work.

No. 0333 haiga4:27
From the curator

The artist’s life, from the first nudge to the last poem. It opens with the universe asking you to be wonderful and the title poem — all you need to know of me is in my words, sounds, and silence. From there the order follows the work itself: ideas that won’t let you sleep, fish that swim faster the harder you chase them, a hundred bad poems to find one good one. The middle is the hard part — indifference, unpaid bills, impostor syndrome, and machines that can write haiku too. It resolves in flow and fun, the advice to always be a verb, and a closing gift: your art passes from the universe, through you, to somebody else.

The haiga, in order

33 haiga · as they appear in the video
  1. could it be that the / universe is asking you / to be wonderful
  2. all you need to know / of me you can find in my / words, sounds, and silence
  3. creativity / is about connecting dots / so start making dots
  4. some nights I can't sleep / because the words in my head / just need to escape
  5. the ideas that wake / you at midnight are just dreams / when morning arrives
  6. ideas are like fish / the more you try to catch them / the faster they swim
  7. if you wait until / things are perfect to begin / you will never start
  8. inspiration is / overrated, instead you / need perspiration
  9. if you want to make / good art then you need to make / a lot of bad art
  10. write one hundred, one / good; one hundred good equals / perhaps one awesome
  11. to force a poem / is like twisting spaghetti / right out of the box
  12. throw that poem back / into the sea so that it / can grow up a bit
  13. sometimes a poem / needs to say less so that it / can really mean more
  14. you are not your art / but it still hurts your heart when / nobody likes it
  15. it's not so much that / people are ignoring you, / it's that they don't care
  16. poetry does not / pay the bills so you need to / learn to do without
  17. if you never sell / then no one can ever say / that you have sold out
  18. living for the praise / of others is like a bird / singing in a cage
  19. if nobody cares / about your art then why not / just make what you like
  20. bots are already / smart enough to write haiku / what more do we need?
  21. the best part of this / image is that the artist / is artificial
  22. if you think you are / an imposter, you are right: / welcome to the club
  23. you will lose your edge / the moment you stop being / afraid of failing
  24. nothing digital / will ever outlast someone / telling a story
  25. the antidote for / too much AI is to go / be with a human
  26. flow is when you are / so involved in something that / nothing else matters
  27. you are not doing / it right if you do not find / yourself having fun
  28. the art you create / is a tangible form of / who you really are
  29. your poetry needs / to be read aloud and then / shared with someone else
  30. always be a verb / to get the most out of life / never be a noun
  31. how many poems / have I left to write, one day / there will be the last
  32. I made this for you / in case you ever ask me / how to be happy
  33. your art is a gift / from the universe through you / to somebody else
The Gift Shop

Take a haiga home

Every haiga in Words, Sounds, and Silence can become a print or a gift. Browse the Gift Shop, or write to ask about a particular one.

Visit the Gift Shop → Ask about a print