Poetry Forms: Celebrate Haiku!

​I’m delighted to share that I’m beginning a new blog series about POETRY FORMS. Some are well-known (haiku, list poem, acrostic, and limerick, for example) and others may be more obscure (ever heard of double dactyl or diamante?) The structure of these forms may be simple or quite complex. Many require following strict rules about length, rhythm, and rhyme. With each post, I’ll dive deeper and share some background about a featured form, then provide children’s books showcasing it. We’ll start with haiku.

Haiku is an ancient Japanese form of poetry, usually written in three lines of a total of seventeen syllables:
The first line is five syllables long.
The second line is seven syllables long.
The third line is five syllables long.

The classic haiku form is easy to remember with the shorthand 5-7-5 for the pattern. The lines do NOT need to rhyme. Traditionally, haiku focused on themes of nature, but now haiku poems are written on various subjects and may also vary in line length and syllable count. For this post, I’ll focus on the classic 5-7-5 form.

An old silent pond.
A frog jumps into the pond--
Splash! Silence again.
                        - Matsuo Bashō

Haiku’s short form is meant to capture a fleeting moment in nature. In Kenneth Yasuda’s Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature and History, the author notes “a successful haiku renders a speaking, vibrant image.”
 
Yasuda writes in great detail about the relationship between three elements in traditional haiku: object, time and place. “It is the relationship among them in a unified whole that is a haiku.”
On the withered bough     (WHERE)           
A crow alone is perching,  (WHAT)               
Autumn evening now.        (WHEN)              
                                                                - Matsuo Bashō

Armed with this knowledge and by just looking out your window, you can have fun experimenting with haiku to capture a moment in nature you’ve observed. 

​You can also find wide use of haiku in children’s books. In LION OF THE SKY: HAIKU FOR ALL SEASONS by Laura Purdie Salas, Illustrated by Merce Lopez “haiku meets riddles in this delightful exploration of spring, summer, fall, and winter.” Young readers answer the haiku riddles as they read this delicious and beautifully illustrated picture book.

​In WHOO-KU HAIKU, A GREAT HORNED OWL STORY by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Jonathan Voss, haiku and lovely illustration showcase the fierce majesty of the great horned owl.

A few more haiku-themed children’s books to put on your reading list:
Climbing the Volcano, A Journey in Haiku by Curtis Manley, illustrated by Jennifer K. Mann
Out of this World, Star-Studded Haiku by Sally M. Walker, illustrated by Matthew Trueman
Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku by Lee Wardlaw, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin
Dogku by Andrew Clements, illustrated by Tim Bowers
​
Have fun crafting your own lovely haikus!
By Eileen Meyer, Rhyme Doctor