How to write Haiku:


The content of a haiku is typically, but not always, focused on what the writer witnesses in everyday life that is more outstanding or important than normal, something deemed worth reaching for in written expression.


The something can pertain to any of the five senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, smelling, for example, hearing a bird's song, or seeing light glistening on water. Some argue that a haiku must contain an obvious reference to a season and must be nature focused, but many of the English language haijin do not employ a nature focus.

After all, for the most part we live in cities, not the rural Japan of several centuries ago when the haiku form was invented by a monk named Basho.


The content of a haiku might be about a everyday, but noticable event, or about an awe-inspiring experience, or about a transformational experience � an epiphany or special insight.


Part of writing haiku is paying attention to the day's surprises � the 'awe' that is usually passed by without notice. The act of creating a haiku is the act of a focusing our attention more closely than we might otherwise do.


Haiku Form:


English-Language haiku is incorrectly said to have a prescribed form of three lines of 5-7-5 syllables and a seasonal reference.

However, there is a great deal of debate about the form of English haiku and few agree that the 3-line, 5-7-5 season reference form is the only acceptable form.


What then is the form of a haiku? Some of the critical aspects of haiku form that have been mentioned are:

 

  • Brevity: one to three lines totaling 17 syllables or less; the average length of published English-language haiku is about 13 syllables. Some suggest that a better measure of brevity is that when read aloud, a haiku can be completed in one breadth. Try reading aloud the spring sun haiku (above) and see if you can do it in one breath
  • Two phrases: most (not all) haiku are composed of two distinct phrases. 
  • Descriptiveness: haiku describe things, what case be seen, heard, tasted, felt or smelled. They don't prescribe or tell or intellectualize or state the poet's feelings about things.
  • Lack of poetic devices: avoidance of traditional poetic forms such as rhyming, simile and metaphor.
  • Juxtaposition: the two phrases are seemingly about different elements noticed by the writer, but the relationship between them is what provides the poetic spark.


Example:


old pond . . .
a frog leaps in
water's sound


the wind of Mt. Fuji
I've brought on my fan!
a gift from Edo

by Matsuo Bashō

 

 

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