I guess there’s no need to introduce this form of poetry, but I’ll tell you the laws quickly. An ideal Haiku should be composed of three lines (with 5, 7, 5 syllables) and it should include one word or so that describes the season in which the poem was written (not necessarily the name of the season). The poem must be written in a present tense and there are those that say the three lines must not be connected literally, although there are many Haiku poems that tell a story or ask a question, and that’s completely legitimate.
More than that, I wish to say that since we’re not writing in Japanese, the natural language of this art form, we are allowed to choose to ignore some of the laws, although I believe the beauty of poetry is when you follow all of the laws. And this is what I want to show you today – a guide to the gates of poetry.
Haiku is the perfect ‘gateway to poetry’ because it forces you to write a story in 17 syllables and to make the poem as solid as concrete.
For example, the lines:
“It is raining outside. My son has not returned from the pub. Someone is knocking on my door, a cop, oh my god.”
Could be translated to a poem like:
Rain, fingers tapping
Knock on the door, the future
I cannot open.
There is a poem by Bashu that shows how refined the Haiku poem can be. One of Bashu’s teachers asked him, ‘Where is your conscience now?’ And he answered in a Haiku poem:
“Old pond…
a frog leaps in
water’s sound”
This was a criticism against his teacher who bothered his meditation. One must know that a classical Haiku has the spirit of Zen all over it. There are many genres in this ancient Eastern form and some of them are present in Western poetry, for example, there is the Death Song that wasn’t necessarily written as the final poem and could have been written several times during the poet’s lifetime. Here is a touching Haiku by Senryu:
“Like dew drops
On a Lotus leaf
I vanish”
While a modern poem can deal with such mundane matters as an escalator in the mall. We’ll deal with modern poetry next time.