A Student Artist Wows Harvard Community With Japanese Verse*

And you thought your freshman seminar fit you well. Imagine how Sonia C. Coman ’09, published haiku poet, felt when she signed up for The Pleasures of Japanese Poetry. Coman, born in Comstantza, Romania, had already been practicing haiku for eight years and has published two books, one on haiku and one on rensaku.

The seminar involved reading, writing, and translating Japanese poetry, and Professor of Japanese Literature Edwin A. Cranston began the year by having his students make their own linked-verses, expecting students to write in English. To the surprise of Cranston and the rest of the class, Coman completed hers in modern Japanese.

“Most of us were just taking the class because it sounded interesting, Japan interested us, or something of the sort, but soon into the class we realized that Sonia was someone really unique and gifted in what we were doing,” Chase Russel ’09 says.

After realizing her talents, Cranston suggested that they write a linked-verse poem together, which ultimately extended for 36 verses.

“It was a very unique and pleasant experience,” says Cranston. “It was the first time I ever had a student who was capable of doing that.”

Coman’s passion for haiku stemmed from a general interest in writing poetry.

“Before writing haiku I wrote free verse in Romanian and was published in a Romanian magazine, and the editor suggested that I write haiku, because it was similar,” Coman says.

She has since founded a haiku club in Comstantza, taught haiku poetry to middle school children, joined the World Haiku Club and the Haiku Society of America, and even appeared on Romanian national television to urge the teaching of haiku to all elementary school students.

But Coman’s talents are not limited to writing haikus. She is concentrating in history of art and architecture with a secondary in Visual and Environmental Studies, and is currently working on Professor Cranston’s new book, “The Secret Island and the Enticing Flame.” Two of her surrealist paintings, inspired by the poems in the book, will be featured on the front and back covers.

“That’s Sonia,” says Cranston. “A poet. A painter. Can’t beat it.”

*A haiku by FM’s resident poet