If you grew up in the USA, the odds are pretty good that at some point you were required to write a haiku in class. Your teacher probably sat you all down and gave you a little lecture on the history and culture of Japan that may or may not have been accurate at all, and also may or may not have been punctuated by the whispers and giggles of the three people in the room that had ever seen any anime. The teacher explained that it was a very short poetry form, 17 syllables broken into three lines of five, seven and five syllables respectively. And then they turned you loose.

Hang on. I’m about to blow your mind.

Haiku – real traditional haiku – has more rules than practically any other form of poetry. It has so many rules that there’s a theory it’s literally impossible to follow them all; they necessarily contradict and conflict with each other. Some of the rules aren’t even possible to follow in English to begin with.

Rather than giving you an overwhelming list of rules and telling you to pick a few, I’m going to discuss the structure of the poem and then give you the short list of rules you absolutely must use for this month’s poetry slam. This isn’t an arbitrary list in any sense; I’m giving you the list that’s generally agreed upon as the defining characteristics of a good haiku, a haiku that is more than just counting on (syllables).

Structure

Haiku are short, ok? Very short. One of the defining characteristics of a haiku is that it can be read in one breath. That’s because it was originally not a standalone form of poetry, but rather the opening verse of a much longer poem (remember when we discussed tanka? it’s like that, but haikai). Over the centuries (thirteenth to nineteenth in the Western reckoning of things), the rest of the poem was discarded in favor of the first verse. Often in the early days of the form a writer would begin to write the longer poem, get the first verse out, and just stop writing for whatever reason. Eventually that lost and discarded verse became a poem of its own.

I’m going to claim that’s the reason I keep a file of all my murdered darlings. Someday they’ll be considered great writing and I won’t need to bother putting the rest of the story around them.

Oh, right, you’re here about structure.

Well, you already know how to count syllables, right? We’ve done sonnets, more sonnets, drottkvaett, blank verse… the good news for you is that syllable counting is all you have to do. You don’t have to worry about rhyme or meter! Yay! Totally simple!

Just kidding.

So the basic structure of a haiku is 17 syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven and five syllables, respectively.

5

7

5

Sounds easy, right? OK. Now we’re going to get into the rules, some of which are structural and some of which are thematic, so hang onto your virtual hats.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Those pesky rules

two parts of a haiku

While a haiku doesn’t have to be a complete sentence – in fact, it shouldn’t be – it has to read in two parts. That is, there needs to be a conceptual break at either the end of the first or second line. Some writers refer to this as “the phrase and the fragment” because there will always be a standalone line of five syllables (either the first or the last) and the remaining twelve syllables should encompass a more complete thought that contrasts or complements but does not restate that fragment. If you’re unsure whether you’ve accomplished this, try reading each part without the other. Does it sound like a complete thought or description?

Look for the phrase and fragment in this haiku by African-American novelist Richard Wright:

Whitecaps on the bay;
A broken signboard banging
In the April wind.

The cutting word

In Japanese, the point between the phrase and fragment is marked by a kireji, or “cutting word.” I’m oversimplifying, but basically the way the characters for this word are written creates an implicit “ending” or “full stop” contained in the word itself that functions like the double line break between stanzas in a longer poem in English. Because English has no structural cognate for the kireji, you can use punctuation in its place. A colon, semicolon, hyphen or period are all acceptable substitutes for the kireji; the important thing is to create a pause as the reader moves through the haiku. Look at the poem above by Wright – see the semicolon? If you couldn’t separate the phrase and fragment before, there’s your clue.

Observation

A haiku is a poetic snapshot of a moment in time, usually describing an observation the poet is making of the natural world around them. Of course, not all the observations have to be visual! You can include sound, touch, and things that would not ordinarily be seen. But when you are writing haiku, you should think to yourself “could all this be captured on one frame of film?” If it couldn’t, you’re probably going to struggle to get everything into the haiku, and you’ll sacrifice clarity. Traditionally, poets would go out and look around for a few moments, then begin writing. In fact, the master Masaoka Shiki told his disciples that they had only to look carefully at one scene in nature to be able to produce over 20 haiku.

A seasonal reference

Traditional haiku must contain a word (called the kigo) that tells the reader in what season the observed scene takes place. Wait. I know what you’re thinking. But it’s not just “spring, summer, autumn, winter.” Any reference to, say, a flower that only blooms in May, or to a sport that is played in the winter, or to particular weather like a monsoon or even thundersnow is adequate. Think about being subtle when you set your scene, like this:

A thin dog barks
at an empty house
red camelias gall
– Ryo Imagawa 

a note about syllables

Note that the Ryo Imagawa haiku above does not have 17 syllables because the translator had to choose between matching the right number of syllables and preserving the image. It will often be the case if you are reading very good translations of haiku that you will not find a 5-7-5 pattern because of these translation choices. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it right in your own work!

Another haiku by Bashō:

初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也
はつしぐれさるもこみのをほしげなり

Written out phonetically with English characters, this reads:
ha-tsu shi-gu-re (5)
sa-ru mo ko-mi-no wo (7)
ho-shi-ge na-ri (5)

On the other hand, look at the syllables in each line of the translation:
the first cold shower
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw

Present tense

You’ve probably noticed something about all the examples I’ve given you so far (and if you haven’t seen it yet, go back and look at them). They’re written in present tense. This brings an immediacy to the shared observation of the haiku. The writer wants you with them in that moment, rather than isolating you with past tense observations about things that happened to them somewhere and somewhen else. Besides, it saves words!

No metaphors

The other thing you’ll notice about the examples I’ve given and will give you is that there are no metaphors. None. Clouds do not scuff around like lost sheep. Dogs are not flowers are not your third grade teacher Mr. Main. This month, a rose is just a rose.

Ok, that’s enough

I could give you a ton more rules (or you can find them on sites like this one) but frankly, this is probably enough to try to juggle for your first attempt at a real haiku.

Examples

I know you’ve probably seen dozens of haiku, but here are a few that I picked out for you because they encapsulate at least the five rules described in this post. Remember, if they’re not perfectly 5-7-5 they’ve probably been translated from another language.

In summer one day
When the sun shone very brightly
His eyes were golden

Morishige Nobusato

The sea at springtime.
All day it rises and falls,
yes, rises and falls.

Buson