Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku

by Natalie Goldberg

A haiku is three simple lines. But it is also, as Allen Ginsberg put it, three lines that “make the mind leap.” A good one, he said, lets the mind experience “a small sensation of space which is nothing less than God.” As many spiritual practices seek to do, the haiku’s spare yet acute noticing of the immediate and often ordinary grounds the reader in the pure awareness of now.

Natalie Goldberg is a delightfully companionable tour guide into this world. She highlights the history of the form, dating back to the seventeenth century; shows why masters such as Basho and Issa are so revered; discovers Chiyo-ni, an important woman haiku master; and provides insight into writing and reading haiku. A fellow seeker who travels to Japan to explore the birthplace of haiku, Goldberg revels in everything she encounters, including food and family, painting and fashion, frogs and ponds. She also experiences and allows readers to share in the spontaneous and profound moments of enlightenment and awakening that haiku promises.

Genres: Poetry, Memoir, Writing, Nonfiction, Japan, Travel, Audiobook

161 pages, Hardcover

Published January 5, 2021

About the author

Natalie Goldberg lived in Brooklyn until she was six, when her family moved out to Farmingdale, Long Island, where her father owned the bar the Aero Tavern. From a young age, Goldberg was mad for books and reading, and especially loved Carson McCullers's The Ballad of the Sad Cafe , which she read in ninth grade. She thinks that single book led her eventually to put pen to paper when she was twenty-four years old. She received a BA in English literature from George Washington University and an MA in humanities from St. John's University.

Goldberg has painted for as long as she has written, and her paintings can be seen in Living Color: A Writer Paints Her World and Top of My Lungs: Poems and Paintings. They can also be viewed at the Ernesto Mayans Gallery on Canyon Road in Sante Fe.

A dedicated teacher, Goldberg has taught writing and literature for the last thirty-five years. She also leads national workshops and retreats, and her schedule can be accessed via her website: nataliegoldberg.com

In 2006, she completed with the filmmaker Mary Feidt a one-hour documentary, Tangled Up in Bob, about Bob Dylan's childhood on the Iron Range in Northern Minnesota. The film can be obtained on Amazon or the website tangledupinbob.com.

Goldberg has been a serious Zen practitioner since 1974 and studied with Katagiri Roshi from 1978 to 1984.

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book, part-memoir, part-history of haiku and part "how to"--writing the Haiku. I read this book as part of a 3 day writing retreat led by Goldberg (along with Joan Halifax and several other wonderful teachers). This is an opportunity to read beautiful haiku as well as learn about Haiku masters such as Basho and Busan.

I loved this book, its warm, inviting voice as we accompany Goldberg on her travels through Japan in search of the history--and presence--of Haiku masters.

I am now writing a Haiku a day in honor of this book (and the retreat) and the idea of "haiku as a healing force in the world." My haiku are not good but they are conceived and executed with love and who knows where they will lead me?

[Q · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Simple Lines - Natalie Goldberg

Many know Natalie Goldberg from her book -Writing down the Bones-. It’s a well known book on writing. She teaches writing workshops globally. This is another book on writing but different. It’s less a how too book but a journey into Haiku and its Japanese roots and 2 Haiku travelogs. As is typical in her books. she writes about her own experiences and her beloved teacher Kaitagiri Roshi and the wisdom he shared that watered the seeds of writing in her. She gives lots of writing examples - here lots of her own and others haiku. And the whole book is inspiration and shows how all of life gives all the material one need to write haiku or anything.

She talks about the well known haiku poets Basho, Buson and Issa and an early Woman haiku poet Chiyo-ni. Alan Ginsberg the beat poet introduced her to Haiku. And she included a couple of his haiku. It was fun to read these haiku and interesting to see how people chose to express themselves.

One of the things I admire about Natalie is she is truly herself. And is truly honest in a non harmful way. She has a wonderful sense of humor and open to life.

I enjoyed this book for its story - haiku adventure - and for having the opportunity to engross myself in haiku - read them - learn from them, learn about writing them, experience a haiku writing group, get to know further the famous H writers and traveling in Japan and see how people lived haiku. And lots more.

Haiku is part of Zen culture and many write a haiku on their death bed. Your lasts words- sometimes wisdom - where you are as you let go into the unknown. When I first learned about this tradition I was unsettled by this but I’ve come to deeply appreciate it and what people share. It’s not maudlin.

The only thing I didn’t like about this ebook is multiple haiku were sometimes spaced together and there was no pause. This made it hard to read them. But most of the time I figured it out easily.

There was a haiku book index I’m looking forward to exploring. I was interested in haiku as an art form for many years now. But more so now.

There was a lovely quality to this book- a sense of being present - an appreciation for nature and how beautiful elements of Japanese culture are. And experienced the generosity of Japanese people. Simplicity and ittle things matter.

One of my favorite parts of her story was how a Japanese monk who wanted to write a book came upon Natalie’s “Bones” book. It was one of the few western writing books translated into Japan. He was so excited and happy he was to meet her. It turns out he was a friend of her Zen teacher who went to America. The world is small - especially in the Zen world. He was so full of joy. I just wanted to hang out with him a while.

I could of left you with some of the haiku. But I found reading them when she offered them poignant often. So am not.

I’ll leave you with these that I wrote reading it.

On the coast
The Eucalyptus trees
So dry they can’t cry.

Q
~~~~

Dawn awakening-
The lightness of mist
So soft and tender
Upon the arm.

Q

[Mark Bourdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Natalie Goldberg is a wonderful storyteller...taking readers on her journey to visit and experience the lives of her Haiku heroes, while uncovering influential underrepresented female haiku masters. She also shares, very candidly, her journey to become a author of haiku poetry. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is a book that will remain in my bookshelf for ongoing reference and reflection. 🙏🏻

[Punk · Rating 2 out of 5]

The white lady energy of this is off the charts. At one point Goldberg literally asks to see a guy's manager. In Japan. Showing at least some self-awareness, but the wrong kind, she explains to the reader: "I am friendly. This is not a threat." The very next line describes the waiter's reaction to her request: "He blanches." Seems the waiter doesn't agree with you, ma'am.

It's also pretty clear she's humiliating her Japanese translator by making her translate all this nonsense, but Goldberg seems to think she likes it. Goldberg is either not afraid of making herself look bad, or unaware she is, and I read this whole book bracing myself for what she'd do next. I was hoping this would have more of a focus on haiku as it's situated in Japan, but instead it reads like the travel diary of an entitled tourist with some haiku thrown in.

It does have a nice selection of haiku by the masters, including Chiyo-ni, but the translators are only given credit in the back, which I found odd. There's so much of the translator in haiku that I like to know who I'm reading. There are also at least three poems that have no translator credit at all.

Also, I wasn't going to say anything, because for the western world haiku is most often a three line poem, but Goldberg repeatedly refers to the haiku of Buson and others as "three simple lines" except in Japanese haiku are traditionally written in one line. This book is ostensibly about travelling to Japan to gain a better understanding of haiku and yet Goldberg seems to be missing some basic facts.

If you can tolerate Goldberg, this is an okay introduction to haiku, but it's really all about her.

Contains: descriptions of ritual suicide.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Natalie Goldberg is the author of the how-to-write classic, Writing Down the Bones. Three Simple Lines begins with Natalie's venture into Japan, in search of the roots of the four masters of haiku. It's a book combining classic haiku, prose text, and recent (including those written by Goldberg) haiku.

[Scott Wiggerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had known for a while that Natalie was writing a book about haiku (disclaimer: I'm the Scott of the "Wanting to See" chapter), but till I read this, I was under the impression it was going to be a writing manual of sorts. It is not--but it is a "thinking manual," one that explains Natalie's "pilgrimage" into the "Way of Haiku." At least half of this brief book is a fascinating travelogue detailing her visits to Japan in search of the locales important to the Japanese haiku masters. I indeed learned a lot about Japan and Japanese culture in these chapters. One of the things that truly struck me was the sheer openness Natalie exhibits to learning about haiku--and the power it holds over her. This was not at all the book I was expecting, but Goldberg left me with a sense of wonder, when so few books do that, and I feel I know her so much better than the Haiku Study Group ever allowed me to know her!

[Artemisia Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well known writing teacher, Natalie Goldberg turns her attention to one of the shortest forms creative writing can take….that of the haiku. This small volume focuses on the art of writing these 3 line poems which traditionally describe a spare moment in time and that often glean some kind of deeper wisdom or truth from a very brief encounter or thought. Three Simple Lines is also about her own pilgrimage to Japan where the form originated in the 17th century and here she visits sites where some of the original haiku masters were born and practiced their craft. Filled with examples of traditional haikus and some that she has written herself, Goldberg demonstrates their koan like quality and how hard it is to write one that really works, as she ends the book by introducing us to a small group of writers honing their skills in a haiku class she is part of at her local library.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don’t let this book keep you from reading Writing Down the Bones.

[John Thorndike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a haiku innocent. This became clear when, deep into Three Simple Lines, I read this haiku by the author:

This black pen
feels meaty
in a writer’s hand

I loved it. Indeed, it was my favorite of all the haiku I’d seen so far in the book. But in the next paragraph Natalie Goldberg tells us that this one was a misstep and a bad haiku. I’m not convinced! Though it lacks the usual evocation of nature, it rings true. I loved, as well, how gently the author nestles this and a hundred other haiku into her pages. Whether they were written a few years ago by an American, or centuries back by some famous Japanese poet, I found all of them engaging. Goldberg, who has always been a great storyteller, explores here the culture that gave birth to haiku, opening up a world for both innocents and experts. What a lively and perceptive book.

[Sher · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 part memoir, part haiku examples, part biographical information on the classic Haiku writers such as Basho... mixed appreciation from me.

[Pat Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard about this book from my niece who wrote a review of it on Goodreads. The review was lighthearted and compelling and I wanted to read it after reading that review. I found the book to be lighthearted, while I could tell that the author was not. I would not describe it as a page turner, but it was delightful reading. I have a certain interest in haiku which also brought my eye to this book. In the past I have liked haiku because it seems easy. Three simple lines as the author says. One of the best things I learned is the fact that the Western belief that there are 3 lines, 5 syllables for the first, 7 for the second, and 5 for the third. This is not necessarily true. The majority of the haikus in this book don't follow that. But a lot of them are translations from Japanese to English. The languages are different enough that the syllables change when you translate. Also, the meaning can change depending on the translator. What I took from it was that you write the haikus. Don't plan one out, rather let it come to you. Sit and feel an experience that affects you with impact, and write it down. Then go about trying to take out the writing that is not necessary when you have time. The author says a tiny notebook with you at all times is important. Towards the end of the book she puts in a set of rules that one of her haiku students made up. They are interesting if not handy. I think anyone who enjoys writing or would like to experience a bit of Japanese culture and history would enjoy this book. It is a short read as well, only 151 pages of text. :)

[Jean Bowen]

A travel memoir of sorts. Goldberg writes about her travels to Japan. She also talks about the two Haiku groups she joined/ studied with in America. One group followed the 5/7/5 form and the other kept to three simple lines. Goldberg did both, saying that if she didn't practice the 5/7/5 form her poems would get too long, missing the point, and if she didn't practice the loose form her words would fall flat (or heavy I don't remember the exact words.) The epilogue had some good reflections on writing haikus. She highlights some beautiful poems throughout the book.


Content:
had some brief homosexual content.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

Natalie Goldberg's writing hits me right squarely in the heart. If you are looking for a book that gives lessons, suggestions, prompts and ideas for writing haiku this probably isn't the book for you. If you hope to gain some understanding of the traditions and origins of haiku and what it feels like to read perfect haiku, then you are on the right track here. So many of Goldberg's memories and reflections cut to the quick with me. This is a very personal, soul-touching little book. Be ready to smile and cry in equal portions.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this book on a total whim when it was the only haiku book I could find at the library with some of the old masters. It turned out to be an excellent intro to haiku. Haiku from several classic authors are interspersed with the author's explorations of Japan and Zen practice. I really enjoyed the format and the poetry. Accessibly written without too much academics or pomp.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few notes...

p. 73 - She pauses a long time, thinking. Then she says, "English builds from the inside out. Japanese from the outside in. The inside of Japanese is hollow, soft, empty of a personal self. You don't have to say everything. It can be ambiguous. Less is better. Least is best." She pauses again. "Jibun equals 'self'. Sometimes Japanese uses I, but not the concept of I. We think of another person and almost enter the other person's consciousness. We try to stand with the other's point of view. In the Japanese language we can even change what we are saying right in the middle if we see evidence that the other person doesn't like or agree with us. We want harmony. That is what matters."

p. 84 - "What you want to see, even though it is with difficulty, you should see." [reference to Buson]

p. 92 - Chiyo-ni: Woman Haiku Master // "Chiro-ni was born in 1703, seven years after Basho's death. For decades she was considered equal to and the counterpart of Basho. More importantly, she was known and respected because she lived the Way of Haiku: aware and open to every moment."

p. 95 - Much of her work celebrates everyday life outside the temple -- yet she never lost sight of what is sometimes called sad beauty: the understanding and acceptance of impermanence, that everything is transient.

p. 113 - Enku (b. 1632), most famous of Japanese sculptors, Buddhist monk - the Way of the Artist; vowed to carve 200,000 Buddha statues out of tree stumps or wood scraps, no two alike

p. 121 - Capturing the spirit of haiku is what I am most interested in [rather than counting syllables]. And haiku asks for a spirit that's not so human centered.

p. 122 - "Wabi-sabi is the Japanese aesthetics: asymmetrical, a sense of roughness, an intimacy, a closeness ... Within the aesthetics is an awareness of the three marks of existence -- what Buddhism teaches -- impermanence, suffering, and ego-lessness, an absence of an individual nature." // Link between Zen and the essence of haiku. Simplicity, respect for natural integrity, and loneliness as a fundamental reality.

[Liane Wakabayashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Natalie Goldberg hasn't actually lived in Japan, but as she humbly proves in Three Simple Lines, you don't need to live in a country for the country to live in you. Natalie's enormous successes flow from the abundance of her decades-long Zen meditation practice, and her more recent fascination with the originators of haiku poetry, Japanese wanderers, mostly men and a lone woman, who strived, as Natalie points out, to write the perfect three-line expression of impermanence, suffering, egolessness, and the absence of individual nature. What I loved about this slim volume was how much it revealed about Natalie, whose spiritual relationship with the Japanese people has spanned much of her life. She accepts not just the poetic in Japanese culture, but the bland convenience and high tech frills offered by Western hotels in Osaka and Kyoto, along with a splurge on a steak and cola after weeks on the local diet. Both a travelogue and a primer for the haiku novice, by the end of Three Simple Lines I was both rooting for Natalie to improve her fumbling attempts, and sharing her happiness when she succeeded with this haiku:
Fast mountain creek,
In dark, cold stones
my original face
Natalie's endearing way of describing the feeling of triumph–"I wanted to do somersaults across the room"–turns Three Simple Lines into the kind of book that the best-selling author of Writing Down the Bones does best: once more, she demystifies the writing life. By the end of Three Simple Lines, I couldn't help but grab a notepad and write a fumbling haiku too.

[Barbara K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread August 6, 2026

Review November 14, 2022
This is a fascinating book for me, for a few different reasons. It's been about 30 years since I first read Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind, which I own in a well-worn 1991 trade paperback edition that includes both books. I seem to recall that I purchased it through a book club that specialized in books on writing, but it's been so long I don't remember for certain. I used to haunt bookstores too, in those days before the internet and ebooks. Regardless of where I got the book, from the first page, the author carried me away, with her completely freeing method of writing combined with a Zen Buddhist outlook on life.

Three Simple Lines is different, and yet no different in how I felt caught up at once in an open-minded, freeing way of looking at writing, in this case haiku, both in its classic forms and in writing haiku as a personal practice. Add to that the author's travels to Japan to walk in the paths of four haiku masters, and this makes for an incredible combination of memoir, travel journal, and exercise in reading and writing haiku, among a few other things, like a glimpse at long-term friendships and forgiveness, and how language can be either a barrier or a portal into new ways of looking at things and understanding each other.

I got all that from this one book, which isn't even a very long book. It left me satisfied, and at the same time wishing for more.

[chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

sigh. i wanted to like this book so much, and Goldberg writes her prose very well, but the actual content in this was disappointing and did not grip me at all. Goldberg describes to the reader her mind-shattering emotional reactions to these seemingly magic haiku, but does nothing to share that magic with the reader. most of the book is a travel diary, and i 100% agree with another reviewer who said this book had "white lady energy"

[Katie Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished reading this again for the third time, only this time, I read it aloud to my friend and it was even better, so it gets a star upgrade.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of my reading challenge for myself this year is to read books set outside of America. This author took me on a wonderful trip to Japan to follow in the footsteps of Haiku masters. I'm not familiar with Japan nor Haiku so this quick read gave me a glimpse into something totally outside my regular routine.

[Cindy Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another gem from Goldberg! This time she is following in the footsteps of some of the greatest haiku poets who have ever lived and refining her ability to write haikus along the way. I have a renewed interest in writing haiku, so this was the perfect book to read. Simple and short, this books provides lots of useful advice not only on writing haiku, but on practicing mindfulness as well.

[Wally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent short memoir of the author's journey into Japan and the heart and history of haiku, with plenty of examples.

[Christie Wyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely little book. Part memoir, part haiku how-to.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a writer of haiku for many years, I found this wonderful book so very interesting and informative. I enjoyed learning about the origins of this form of poetry. Natalie took me on a journey that I did not want to end.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't often read something then immediately start over so that I can go more slowly. I do (far too often) become so enamored of a book that I want to read more books on the topic, which is certainly the case with Goldberg's beautiful record of her experiences with haiku and eventual trip to Japan to visit sites related to Basho, Busin, Issa, and Shiki. While there she also finds out about Chiyo-ni, a female haiku master born in 1703 and not mentioned by The Guys:
I knew when I listened to Ginsburg, so many years ago, that women were involved but not mentioned. I am not a patient person, but in this one way I am -- I listen to the boys and wait with certainty that the women will be revealed.
OK, but it took another 30 years?

The book is so nicely peppered with haiku that it somehow softens it, and reading it becomes a meditative experience.

I found an incident at the end of the book touching: Goldberg joins a haiku group in Santa Fe, but none of her haiku seem to land. Then one does, and as she shares the process I could feel in my bones that the change she makes, following another group participant's suggestion, turns it from a nice, forgettable poem into something that I certainly can't articulate, but responded to with such quiet pleasure that I felt like it was my> second haiku.

My first, in the sense that it reached into me, was by Issa, whose children all died, but he mourned terribly the death of a particular daughter, Sato, and wrote:

In a dream
my daughter lifts a melon
to her soft cheek

Now, Goldberg describes another written after his daughter's death, as "one of his most poignant verses:

The world of dew
is only a world of dew --
and yet

That one did not really reach me. At least not yet.

The quiet little haiku, borne out of connection to nature and of the bittersweet knowledge that life's most permanent quality is that of impermanence, is something I could not have appreciated or really received until now, and Goldberg's book has been an important step in that particular way.

[Dorothy Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another reviewer noted 'this is not a craft book.' But Goldberg provides this disclaimer right in her subtitle: 'a writer's pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku.' She admits near the end of the book, after joining a Santa Fe haiku group, "Eventually what I begin to enjoy most is simply not knowing how to do it. I haul in my haiku each month, and they usually land like lead. I like not being good, not having a clue." The book ends with the chapter, Haiku Lesson, which recounts Beth Howard's six rules of haiku, along with eight of Howard's haiku. She was a student whose practice
was writing a haiku a day for a year. Howard expresses concern that her list is from 2015 and much has changed. Goldberg's influence becomes clear: 'The first thing is to let go.'
The book is a tribute to her teachers, Allen Ginsberg and Katagiri Roshi (born in Osaka), and to the haiku masters, whose haiku she often recites. She visits Buson's grave, Basho's frog pond, and travels some of Basho's path. She provides background and celebrates the female haiku writers. Goldberg tries to remain humble, and is honest. She doesn't speak Japanese, she doesn't eat much Japanese food, her gifts are not wrapped elegantly. Her inner critic is present but she is foremost
a teacher and honoring the creative process, her students and other writers (like Kawabata, a Nobel Prize winner) is still what she does best.

[Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read several other books by Natalie Goldberg, I came to this one attracted by those earlier positive experiences, by a desire to learn more about writing, specifically about a form, the haiku, that I haven't yet tried, by Goldberg's Buddhism, and by my own fascination with Japan, having lived there as a child. Those would be the points of connection I hoped to find and did find with this book.

The book is as spare as the haiku form it explores and is essentially a memoir of the author's pilgrimages to Japan to visit the sites associated with her favorite haiku poet, Buson, and with his more famous predecessor Basho. She shares these experience of travel in Japan, along with stories of her earliest experiences of haiku, her memories of poet Alan Ginsberg, and her more recent experience as a member of a haiku writing group in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We follow along with her to Kyoto and to Takayama to meet Harada Yoshi, a Zen priest with a temple there. She shares dozens of haikus, some from the masters, some of her own, some from the Santa Fe haiku group, and some from other Japanese writers of haiku, including Chiyo-ni, a female haiku master.

In form, the book has a peripatetic quality, it's style reflecting its subject. It's rather amazing how much is packed into this tight little volume, through its gentle perambulations. My biggest takeaway is contained in the title and discussed within the book. I was taught that haiku was about counting syllables, 5-7-5. I learned that it's essentially "three simple lines," the simpler the better. And some of those three simple lines pack a more powerful punch in their brevity than works focused on having the correct number of syllables.

Three Simple Lines contains some good ideas for writing your own haiku and lots of examples for inspiration.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

audio
Read by the author
I enjoyed aspects of this book. When the reader was being instructed on the poetry and the ancient poets of haiku as well as when the author describes the museums she is touring in Japan.
But my overall feeling for this memoir is not one of admiration. The author authentically depicts herself in sometimes unflattering narrative. And because she included this persona, I sometimes became angry at what I was hearing. And I would prefer to admire the writer of a memoir if for no other reason than to stay invested.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though I learned a great deal about haiku and famous Japanese haiku poets this book was a bit unengaging for me. I kept reading out of interest for the topic and knowing the book was short. Biggest takeaway- 3 simple lines that do not need to be counted. This is so freeing. I enjoy writing poetry so plan to write some haikus based on my new information and tips in the final chapter.

[Marc Mannheimer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several of the anecdotes in this poetic memoir are humorous and delightful. But there are many that fall a little flat. High points are finding Bashos grave and Natalie's tribute to the deceased Allan Ginsburg.