Haiku

Created: March 14, 2021 11:17 AM
Forest status: #soil
Last Edited: June 20, 2021 12:23 PM
Retention Rating: #2⭐⭐
Review Due: July 10, 2021 12:23 PM

Japanese verse form comprising three lines and a total of 17 syllables, i.e. 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second line, and 5 in the third.

There is a difference between our understanding of ‘syllables’ based on the original Japanese formula).

Haiku, strictly, should be about nature.

• Rules::

  Rules are what a poem needs to be considered a haiku. But as with all forms of art, these rules can be bent and sometimes broken for artistic effect.

• Qualities::

  Qualities are what separate a "good" haiku from a "bad" haiku. It's how you know who's a pro and who's a haiku scrub.

• There are three basic rules for writing haiku:

  5-7-5 Structure

  the English concept of syllables doesn't exist in the same way in Japane

  a Japanese 'on' measures a chunk of sound.

  A kana character like こ counts as just one on. Then when you add う to it to make it こう it becomes two on. In English, even though this is two kana characters and two on, we wouldn't distinguish the long こう sound as more than one syllable. To us, it's just a long vowel. So we think of it as just one syllable.A kana contraction like きょ counts as just one on. That's because in Japanese, we think of small ゃゅょ as a part of the character that comes before it. Then when you add う to it to make きょう it becomes two on. In English, this is still just one syllable because to us きょう sounds like one long vowel after a consonant.However the small っ does not get included in the on that comes before it. So やった has three on and, in English, two syllables.The ん also counts as one on, if you were wondering. Which would seem very strange in English considering it's just the nasal n sound. But it's a kana in its own right, so it gets to count as one.

  Seasonal Elements

  Haiku are often considered nature poems. Look at any classical haiku and you'll usually see some kind of natural imagery like wildlife or weather. This is more formal than something like a sonnet, that should be about love but isn't always—haiku have specific words you have to use.These are called kigo 季語きご, or seasonal words. In our Bashō example, the kigo is the frog, which represents spring. Some kigo may seem more obvious than others, but they are all rooted deeply in Japanese culture. It isn't as simple as thinking about spring and writing it all down.

• A "Cutting" Word