What is a haiku?
Haiku is a very popular form of traditional Japenese poetry, now being adopted to many different languages around the world. Haiku is a very short poem, usually describing some real-life observation related to nature or human life. Focus is on depicting the scene without adding any similes, judgments, or overly philosophical and abstract thoughts. Successful haiku poem will evoke similar feelings in it's readers the haiku poet felt while experiencing the event depicted.
A few haiku examples
No sky
no earth - but still
snowflakes fall
--Hashin
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old pond...
a frog leaps in
water's sound
--Basho
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Climb Mount Fuji,
o snail --
but slowly, slowly
--Issa
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Haiku Rules
Original Japanese haiku has very strict rules. In other languages, there is no ultimate consensus about what exactly makes a poem to qualify as haiku. Usually, some subset of traditional Japanese rules is adopted, while trying to preserve the "spirit of haiku".
Here are the main haiku rules:
- Each poem consist of three lines with 5,7 and 5 syllables each. Since syllables in Japanese are shorted than in western languages, following this rule in English would lead to haiku, which is usually too long. So English-language haiku poets usually write haiku in three or less lines, with no more than 17 syllables total.
- There is a so-called "season word", kigo, present in the poem, indicating the season in which the scene happened. The kigo may directly name the season, like "autumn winds" or "summer night". More often than not, kigo just hints for the season, for example "cherry blossoms" means spring, "mosquitoes" bite us in summer, and we wear scarf in the winter.
- Haiku should not rhyme, do not have title, don't use explicitly stated parables or another poetic devices used in other forms of poetry.
- Haiku is a literally equivalent of a small picture, coming from direct experience, an instant "moment of wonder". Best haiku's usually contains two elements,
combined in some unique, unusual way.
A leaf
returning to the tree --
no, a butterfly!
--Basho
Haiku Links
HAIKU for PEOPLE - What is Haiku?
/ How to write Haiku poems / Haiku Masters / Contemporary haiku.
Online Haiku Magazines
The Heron’s Nest -
A well-regarded monthly online journal of contemporary English-language haiku
Simply Haiku -
An E-Journal of Haiku and Related Forms (bi-monthly)
modern HAIKU -
An Independent Journal of Haiku and Haiku Studies {quarterly)
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