I love haiku. They’re short and simple. I don’t mean they’re easy. Their simplicity is deceiving. But haiku is a form I love to write and to read. This month’s column on my website is called Do You Haiku? In it, I share some published haiku I love, a few of my own haiku, a description of how I go about writing haiku (including two fuzzmail links so you can see them being written “live”), links to a few great blog posts about haiku, and tips on writing them.
Here’s the beginning of 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.
You can read the rest here.
AmoXcalli has the Poetry Friday roundup today.