Haiku Example - formal, traditional and modern

This haiku is composed of lines of 5 - 7- 5 syllables in the formal English-language form. It is divided into three phrases, indicated by the line breaks. It lacks a caesura so many editors would consider this not to be a haiku; however, some editors do permit the use of a single, grammatically correct sentence as a haiku. Read aloud it has no natural pauses.

the whirling snowfall
batters my weary heart with
insistent beauty

~M. Kei
Previously published in Haiku Harvest, Summer, 2006.


This poem could just as easily be written as a single line, and indeed, in Japanese, haiku are so written. It is a convention of Western languages to write them on three lines:

the whirling snowfall batters my weary heart with insistent beauty


Perhaps the reason Westerners prefer the three line form is because multi-line stanzas are so ingrained in Western traditions that it doesn't 'look like a poem' unless it is composed of multiple lines. Nothing in English tradition is as short as the Japanese haiku -- another reason why many Westerners have trouble regarding haiku as 'serious' literature. Anything so small much be easy to write, enit? Yet strict modernists would consider both versions of the poem to be excessively wordy. They would strip out all adjectives and adverbs as well as personal references, leaving:

snow--
batters the heart
with beauty
~M. Kei


While there is a certain severe beauty in micropoems, the limits of the form do not provide the flexibility I prefer. As a poet I prefer to utilize length and brevity, lyricism and objectivity, and all other approaches as I see fit. While I value the structural integrity that forms provide, forms should be guidelines, not dogma.

Haiku Example - formal, classical

Haiku - classical, formal English-- 5 - 7- 5 syllables, caesura, seasonal reference. This haiku is divided into two phrases, with the pause (caesura) coming at the end of the first line. The sound-image of pine trees soughing in the wind makes this nature poetry; the human reference is secondary to the natural phenomenon. This piece is classically formed, Japanese poems did not have titles, but they were often accompanied by 'headnotes' that gave information about the occassion of the composition of the poem, or some other information to help understand the poem in context. In addition, the poem makes reference to 'pine surf' which is an ancient Japanese phrase describing the sound of pine trees in the wind. It shows up in numerous poems and is much older than the haiku tradition. Haiku itself is a relatively recent (17th century) offshoot of older Japanese genres. (More on them later.)

Upon hearing the approach of Hurricane Isabel.

'Pine surf' they called it,
those old poets who loved storms
as much as I do.

~M. Kei

Previously published in Haiku Harvest, Summer, 2006.


kumo haruru
arashi no oto wa
matsu ni are ya
tsuki mo midori no
iro ni haetsutsu

~Saigyo (b 1118, d 1190)


the clouds blowing and
the storm roaring like surf
in the pine trees;
the moon also
a deep green

trans. M. Kei

The above poem is a 'waka,' not a haiku, but more on waka later. To me this poem evokes the greenness not just of the pine trees, but the storm as well. I too have seen the green tornado sky in one quarter of the heavens with a ragged full moon revealed by a break in the clouds. Awesome! However, that is not the conventional interpretation of the poem.

The sound of storm winds
clearing all the clouds away
is up in the pines--
where even the moonlight now
seems of a deep green hue.

trans. Steven D. Carter, from Traditional Japanese Poetry

Haiku

What is haiku? For the average North American, a haiku is an exercise from elementary school in which they learned that the poem was composed of three lines of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables, or 5-7-5. While this is the original form of haiku in Japanese, the Japanese method of writing syllables means that the content of the poem is briefer than could be contained in the same number of English syllables. Thus in English, formal haiku adheres to a format of a short line, a long line, and a short line, the whole to be spoken in a single breath. Yet this is not the Japanese practice -- Japanese haiku are written in a single line. This leads to English haiku written in one line. But Japanese haiku are also distinguished by a caesura, or pause, that connects and links two ideas, usually two images, which causes some English-language haiku to be written in two lines. Nonetheless, three lines is the most popular because the phrasing of Japanese naturally breaks into the alternating pattern of 5-7.

Various other patterns are proposed as well, while others have abandoned the idea of 'counting' syllables, lengths, words, beats, or anything else. There is general consensus among poets and scholars that 5-7-5 is NOT what defines a haiku in the first place. No, what defines haiku is that it is seasonal poetry about nature.

If you're familiar with the 'joke-ku' 'haiku error messages' and your banal elementary school 5-7-5 poems about kittens, you may be baffled to discover that these in no way qualify as 'haiku.' They are what the Japanese call 'zappai' -- or parodies, knockoffs, jokes, etc. Certainly there is a place for such things -- we all love a good joke and parody is as much an art as poetry -- but they aren't haiku.

Haiku must have some sort of reference to nature or the season in it. Period. It's a genre, you see, not a form. Other poems are written in the same form, but are not the same genre. As mentioned above, zappai shares the form, but not the content. Another popular genre using the same form is senryu. Sometimes called 'humorous haiku,' it began as the 'lighter side of life,' and has evolved into a serious genre that can treat serious subjects. The chief difference between senryu and haiku is that senryu is about human nature while haiku is about nature. There is overlap between the two and novices are often hard-pressed to tell the difference.

Further, many magazines call themselves 'haiku' magazines but publish both senryu and haiku without distinction. Some publications will even go so far as to subdivide between haiku and 'hokku' -- but this is splitting hairs to a degree that will only frustrate the novice. Haiku magazines do not publish zappai; they don't consider it to be 'real literature.' Zappai doesn't need any help getting published; the world is full of people willing to forward it to everyone they know via email.