Haiku Rules Haiku

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 02 Feb 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

mercenary30	02 Feb 2004
A proper Haiku Should count five seven and five Syllables per line

Moongold	02 Feb 2004
Hi Mercenary, There is some debate about this. It is difficult to transcribe something that has occurred in Japanese to English completely. Even Basho did not always write in 5 - 7 - 5 syllable framework. And even so, haiku is more than just the supposedly "correct" syllabic framework. A haiku is not just a pretty picture in three lines of 5 - 7 - 5 syllables each. In fact, most haiku in English are not written in 5 -7 - 5 syllables at all. Many are not even written in three lines. What distinguishes haiku is concision, perception and awareness - not a set number of syllables. A haiku is a short poem recording the essense of a moment keenly perceived in which Nature is linked to human nature. ............ [..] A haiku can be anywhere from a few to seventeen syllables, rarely more. It is now known that 12 - not 17 - syllables in English are equivalent in length to the 17 onji (sound symbols) of the Japanese haiku. A number of poets are writing them shorter than that. The results almost literally fit Alan watts' description of haiku as "wordless" poems from The Haiku Anthology by Cor Van Den Heuvel, Norton 1999 Like most things in language, poetic technique is an evolving thing. There is much more to haiku than the traditional western understanding of 5-7-5. The piquancy 0f the moment is a defining characteristic as well..... and so on:). It is fun learning and practising how we see and write in this way, don't you think? Moongold

mercenary30	02 Feb 2004
Adaptive Haiku Learn and grow with Aeclectic

Moongold	02 Feb 2004
You're a quick learner, Mercenary :D Moongold

The Haiku Rules Haiku thread was originally posted on 02 Feb 2004 in the Tarot Games & Fun board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Games & Fun, or read more archived threads.