What Is a Haiku and What Isn’t?

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By John J. Dunphy

Godfrey, Ill., haiku poet
[link]


to write a haiku
there is a set formula
one has to follow

My dear Aunt Minnie
loves to bake banana pies
for her family.

sitting on my porch
i contemplate the full moon
in my wisdom quest

What do these three poems have in common? Some erudite readers who didn’t
sleep through high school English will engage in a bit of syllable counting
and suddenly proclaim, “They’re all haiku! The first line of each poem
contains five syllables, the second line has seven syllables and the third
line contains five syllables, for a grand total of just seventeen syllables.
That’s the formula for writing haiku, which is a Japanese type of poetry.”

Well, I’ve got news for you, friends. As far as your high school
introduction to haiku was concerned, you would have been better off catching
a few Z’s like some of your classmates. Your teacher, regardless of his/her
grasp of Shakespeare and Chaucer, didn’t know beans about haiku. “Haiku”
example 1, cited above, fails on two counts: (a) it’s wrong about haiku
having a set formula one has to follow and (b) the poem itself, despite the
5-7-5 syllable count, isn’t even a haiku.

While many early English-language haiku poets indeed wrote in the 5-7-5
style, modern haiku poets have pretty much discarded that format. We
believe that it tends to make a haiku too wordy and stilted-sounding. A
genuine haiku is characterized by a freshness and spontaneity that simply
can’t be conveyed by strait-jacketing its expression.

A declarative sentence that has been chopped up into a 5-7-5 format, such as
example 2, is not a haiku! Does a rambunctious fan who jumps into the
playing field of Busch Stadium during a game automatically become a
Cardinal? Of course not — No more than a three-line sentence written 5-7-5
automatically qualifies as a haiku. Pseudo-mysticism, as embodied in
example 3, doesn’t make the cut either. A haiku should not sound like a
line of dialogue from the old “Kung Fu” TV series.

Real haiku nonetheless usually are written in three lines, and traditionally
deal with nature.

the blood-red dawn
duck hunters crouch
behind a blind

cemetery
wind sweeps a floral wreath
into the paupers’ section

dawn
a beachball
leaving with the tide

VA hospital
a tree in the courtyard
scarred by lightning


A senryu is a three-line poem that is similar to a haiku. Senryu deals
with the foibles of human nature in a humorous or satirical manner.

wet footprints
in a U-turn
on the diving board

school restroom
the English teacher corrects
the misspelled graffiti

class reunion
the ex-football team captain’s date
handsome in his tux

New Year’s Day
my champagne glass bubbling
with Alka-Seltzer

Please note that the preceding senryu are written in three lines, yet
there’s nary a 5-7-5 format in sight. But check out the following poems.
IRS audit
examiner keeps chuckling
without looking up

emergency room
parents tell their child to say
he fell down the stairs

during the campaign
even his sign in my yard
leaning to the right

her suicide note
she checks the dictionary
for correct spelling

There it is - that classical 5-7-5 style that I’ve been telling you to
erase from your memory banks. And all four were published in reputable
English-language haiku journals, no less. So what’s going on here?

It is permissable to write a 5-7-5 haiku or senryu, as long as the
spontaneity of the poem isn’t compromised. Does the poem really work best
when written that way? Then write it that way.

I urge you to check out the web site of the Haiku Society of America at
[link] to learn more about haiku. Frogpond, the official journal
of the Haiku Society of America, and Modern Haiku, the oldest
English-language haiku journal in continuous existence, should be required
reading for anyone seriously interested in haiku. A plethora of other
haiku periodicals exist that also merit perusual. Get to know
real haiku by subscribing to journals that publish the stuff.

Oh, one last thing. If you just know that the plural of haiku is haiku -
not haikus — that alone will put you literary light-years ahead of the
general public.

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I really like his essay. I will leave you with a link to my favorite haiku website:

[link]


Amy

<sub>I am not officially taking part in the current haiku writing month because I know I will not even come close to completing the month. I love haiku so much though, that I had to dive in and swim around a little.




original css by =simo2409</sub>