Everything You Need To Know About Haiku
Apr 18 2024

Every April, the world celebrates International Haiku Poetry Day, a wonderful holiday that's part of National Poetry Month. Poet Sari Grandstaff started the tradition in 2007, and the Haiku Foundation turned it into an international celebration.For this special holiday during this special month, we challenged Fable readers to write their own poems following the Japanese haiku format. They did not disappoint!
What is a haiku poem example?
I discovered the haiku master Matsuo Bashō through the marvelous collection "Love and Barley." In the introduction, we learn about the life of the famous poet and monk who traveled through Japan in the 1600s, writing some of the greatest Japanese haiku."Throughout his life as a wanderer Basho sought to celebrate: whether his eyes turned to mountain or gorge, whether his ears heard thunder or bird-song, whether his foot brushed flower or mud, he was intensely alive to the preciousness of all that shared the world with him."
The book includes some beautiful examples of haiku, as well as the final haiku ever written by Basho,Sick on a journey – over parched fields dreams wander on.
How to write haiku
Some people have bad memories of being forced to write haiku poems in school. Anyone can write a haiku but don't treat it like a homework assignment. The Poetry Foundation has a simple definition for writing haiku, probably familiar to many readers from school projects:“A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression.”
I like to break haiku writing into five simple steps. Don't focus on form right away, start with observation and exploration!- Go out and explore the world around you. Take a walk, a bike ride, or just lay in the grass.
- Write down all your thoughts, feelings, impressions, and images you see.
- Underline the words that were most vivid to you.
- Stitch these vivid images together as a three-line poem
- Count the syllables on each line, trying to have five syllables on the first line, seven syllables on the second line, and five syllables on the third line.