Ethics, Values, & Sustainability
Environmental Strategy & Sustainability
Systems Thinking & Sustainable Businesses
Last Updated 01/15/2006
The haiku that you will find below are examples of the poetry that students
wrote during the semester. These haiku allowed students to explore their
relationship with the natural world through a structured writing assignment.
Haiku are 17 syllable poems, written in three lines of 5 syllables, 7 syllables and 5 syllables. Great haiku masters seek to write with the newness of beginning writers, and thus there is often little difference between a haiku from a master and the examples that are presented below. At its essence, haiku is more a work of the heart than of the head.
This was not a class about creative writing, and students were not aware that they would be asked to write haiku when they signed up for the class. However, the topic of sustainability challenges each of us to think creatively. We have created the challenges which currently confront our world and our societies, and it will take creative, "outside the box" thinking to allow us to successfully meet these challenges.
Haiku writing was designed to encourage students to tap into the creative sides of their brains and to find their hearts, something that few business school classes are able to do. I think that as you review the poetry that the students wrote, you will agree that our future is in the hands of some very creative individuals!
