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Responding to Your Community Through HaikuWhat is a Haiku?;) Photo © James Sondrow Haiku is often the first method of writing poetry introduced to children. Poems written in this form are bite sized, beautiful and easy to teach. Americans generally think of a haiku as a short, visually expressive, non-rhyming poem with three lines, containing a total of seventeen syllables. In this standardized format, the first line of the poem contains five syllables, the second seven and the third again five. However, a haiku does not necessarily need to have 17 syllables, and the format taught in American schools is often quite different from the traditional Japanese style. In fact, haiku are usually much shorter, ranging from 12 to 14 syllables or even less. Some haiku contain only one line, some have four or five. Moreover, traditional haiku often take place in natural settings, containing imagery that reflects the human perception of the physical environment around us. Traditional haiku always indicate what season it is and incorporates a shift from a starting image to an idea or statement that generates reflection or understanding. What really distinguishes a haiku, however, is that it should be compact and elegant. It should reflect the concrete world around the poet as experienced though the senses (sight, sound, touch, hearing, smell). It can capture your neighborhood, your garden, your street.
Gun fights after 8:00 > Next: Examples of Masterful Haiku 1 William J. Higginson, The Haiku Handbook. (Kodansha International, Tokyo 1985) pg.5 |
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