This are the three rules I picked up on while researching Haiku. I started my research as a result of joining the Haiku group at Read Write Poem. The group moderator, Allen Summers, has a great site, With Words, which is a great place to get started writing in the form.

The moderator told me about a book called Baseball Haiku, something I might not otherwise have picked up. I got it from the library and got a lot out of it.

Taking Liberties

Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written About Baseball
by Cor van den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura.

This book contains over two hundred American and Japanese Haiku. It includes bios of the writers whose works are included. The poems show several of the liberties that writers take with the format.

One variation is the number of syllables used. At least in American poetry, it is often less than 17 syllables that you’ll read. It seems that 17 syllables is an awkward number to work with because of the way the English language is formed.

Whereas, Japanese syllables are counted very differently from ours and that is based on the way the language is written. They may actually use many more syllables than in the English poems.

The other thing I noticed in the poems is that they don’t all contain words related to the season, (originally a Haiku imperative).

Investigating this form, working to produce Haiku, I’ve learned a few things about myself.

1. I can learn to write these
2. Not all my first efforts were passable
3. There are a lot of variations I want to try out

Two Questions Occur to Me

Haiku is a verse format. In fact Japanese Haiku, I read, is often written in one line. So I’m wondering, is it officially acceptable to use a collection of Haiku verses to complete one poem? I did, but I don’t know if it’s allowed.

Is it acceptable to title Haiku poems? I see them titled and not. When I think about it, it could be cheating to title a Haiku as that is literally adding more titles. My inquiring mind needs to know.

It’s been a lot of fun to work with this form and I’m not finished yet. It’s really not that easy to make them sing. Still, I am enjoying working with them. Trying out a form is a great way to learn how to use it. And with that, it’s a good idea to seek out feedback from someone whose opinion you respect.

I’d love to know what do to learn different poetry forms. And if you want to share your thoughts about Haiku, let me know that too.

So it is better to speak
remembering we were never
meant to survive
comes through from Audre Lorde
and I pause to wonder about her emotions
at the moment she wrote those lines.

Dissolving in the chemic vat
of time, man (gristle and fat),
corrupting on a rock in space…
slides in and I’m once again
marveling at Stanley Kunitz
and the imagery he chooses to create.

I think about how, like Diane Ackerman
I too praise my destroyer.
Then I think I get how Billy Collins
came to see the relationship
between sex and death.

And without recalling
a single word from either, their names
Maya Angelou and Lucille Clifton
summon up from deep within me,
adoration and reverence such that
I know, no one will miss my voice
not put on paper tonight.

©2009 by Shari Lynne Smothers

My distractions for this poem came from the following works:

A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde, from The Black Unicorn
Change by Stanley Kunitz, from The Collected Poems
I Praise My Destroyer by Diane Ackerman, from I Praise My Destroyer
Purity by Billy Collins, from Questions About Angels
Ailey, Baldwin, Floyd, Killens, and Mayfield by Maya Angelou, author of I Shall Not be Moved
Study the Masters by Lucille Clifton, from Blessing the Boats