What Is Haiku and Why Does One Write it?
Haiku, as you probably know, is that little poetic form of three lines, often thought of as also incorporating a 5-7-5 syllable count per the lines. That's basically right. Haiku is an ancient Japanese poetic form growing out of the early Japanese courts and their love of poetry. In the 17th Century Basho, one of the three early haiku masters, pulled that three line form from longer poetic forms in vogue then and made it its own form. I've already mentioned three of the "Rules" of haiku, that it is three lines of five syllables in the first and third lines and seven in the middle line. But the syllable count is based on a fallacious equating of Japanese sound units with English syllables. The Japanese haiku has the 5-7-5 structure so when people started to write haiku in English, they decided it should be by syllable count. But sound units in Japanese are not equal to syllables in English. Even the word Haiku, give the lie to that equality. In Japanese sound units,...