What is Haiku?

One way of writing your own poetry is to imitate the structure of the Japanese haiku. The Haiku is a tiny verse-form in which the Japanese poets have been working for hundreds of years. The haiku is a simple but subtle little poem of seventeen syllables.

Examples of Haiku:

The fierce wind rages 

And I see how trees survive 

They have learned to bend.  

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The lonely raindrop

Hurtling silently downwards

Slices humid air.

The Haiku Form

• A haiku is unrhymed.
• It is three lines long.
• It has 17 syllables in all : line 1 has 5 syllables - line 2 has 7 syllables - line 3 has 5 syllables.
• It is always written in the present tense
• It contains strong visual images.
• It captures a fleeting moment usually to do with nature or the seasons
• It uses very few words while suggesting a great deal.

Haiku is not expected to be always a complete or even a clear statement.The reader is supposed to add to the words his own associations and imagery and thus to become a co-creator of his own pleasure in the poem.

• Haiku Writers and Examples