Do You Haiku?

Haiku is a short Japanese poetic form that we often teach kids in school, mostly because it doesn’t rhyme, so it’s a form they can feel successful at.

I love writing haiku. Something about them really connects with me. Maybe because they often capture a moment in nature, and that’s something I really like to do in poetry.

OK, so the basics. A haiku traditionally follows a certain syllable count. There are 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second, and 5 in the third. Japanese haiku in their native language don’t necessarily follow that count, and modern haiku writers also don’t feel constrained by that syllable count. The main point is that the poem is extremely brief! However, I like the 5-7-5 count. I like that skeleton to work within.

Other traditional haiku characteristics:

Nature: Haiku are image-based poems. They generally try to capture a moment in the natural world.

No figurative language: The idea in traditional haiku is to stay in that moment of nature, so no metaphors, similes, etc.