Haiku: Meant to be seen, not counted out

This week, in an American town or city, a classroom full of students will relegate their experience of haiku to syllable-counting. This is because American students are taught that traditional Japanese poetry known as haiku is a syllabic form written to the English language count of 5 syllables on the first line, 7 syllables on the second and 5 syllables on the third. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The folks who put on NaHaiWriMo (National Haiku Writing Month), a yearly online haiku-writing challenge that takes place in the month of February, refer to this perception as an "urban myth" imparting all the cultural, linguistic and scholarly reasons poets should avoid this method in the bluntly titled essay, "Why No 5-7-5?" Upfront they state that NaHaiWriMo "is not anti-5-7-5, but counting syllables is hardly the only target for haiku (if at all)."

The challenge of learning and teaching haiku

The internet is a great resource but also a hotbed of mixed advice and misinformation. Serious seekers of writerly knowledge will come upon article after article advising that haiku is created with the counting out of English language syllables in the 5-7-5 pattern. But this impression of haiku was baked into American minds long before the internet existed.

In the 1950's, American poets began trying their hand at creating English haiku. This eventually filtered down to educational pedagogy where it spread far and wide, and where the idea of haiku as a 5-7-5 form remains fixed with educators for more than half a century.

The Haiku Foundation cites the following as an example of the problem within the trenches of teaching:

The Web is full of pedagogical suggestions and lesson plans for a unit on haiku in grade school or junior high. Here is an example, one of the better ones, by Glori Chaika, a teacher of gifted middle-school students in New Orleans:

"As a teacher, first explain the haiku’s rigid structural format of five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. Read several to the class. There are some wonderful Japanese haiku available.… Establish a mood. To do so, use visual imagery and/or music or pictures of pastoral scenes, and when the students seem to have some glorious scene in their mind’s eye, challenge them to record it—in seventeen syllables. Do not break the mood until poetry is produced."

So 5–7–5 is the cardinal rule. This is haiku as it is almost universally taught in American schools—a poem about nature written in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables. It has become a cliché or joke in the haiku community. It is an invidious joke, however, because it serves to perpetuate a mistaken impression of what a haiku is and has been and totally misses what it might offer to young minds. Rather than learning to use their fingers and thumbs, pupils could learn what an image is and how putting two images together can create an interesting resonance.

The above passage was published in The Haiku Foundation site in 2016. Unfortunately, misguided curriculum on haiku still persists in 2021 thanks to the spreading of incorrect syllable counting cycling from teacher to student, teacher to teacher, institution to institution. A lesson titled "Rules of Haiku" in a program on Asian studies on the University of Boulder site mentions the following under the Plan for Assesment:

Students will be able to use the class-generated chart to write and analyze their own haiku poetry. Teacher will analyze student created haiku based on three simple rules discovered by the students. For example, "juicy words", content relating to nature, and the 5-7-5 repeating pattern.

Now, compare the above lesson plan and its emphasis on syllables with the following fact (according to the NaHaiWroMo site): Japanese haiku counts sounds, not strictly syllables (the linguistic term is mora—Japanese is a moraic language, not a syllabic one). Thus, we can see how this poses a problem linguistically for English speakers who end up getting fixed on external constructs and missing out on the essence of haiku.

While educators are slow to change, serious poets are breaking free of syllable-counting to make up for language differences. According to Keiko Imoaka in the blog, Graceguts:

Over the years, however, most haiku poets in North America have become aware that 17 English syllables convey a great deal more information than 17 Japanese syllables [sound units known as "on" or "morae"], and have come to write haiku in fewer syllables, most often in three segments that follow a short-long-short pattern without a rigid structure. This style is called by some “free-form” haiku.

Re-envisioning haiku

Despite the plethora of misguided information online, it is possible for American educators to find, study and teach haiku in a way opens one up to the experience. An important first step would be to read the work of both notable Japanese poets and contemporary English voices.

There is much written about 17th Century haiku master, Matsuo Bashō, who is revered as the most famous haiku master of all. Here is one of the earliest and most well-known haiku by Bashō:

An ancient pond!

With a sound from the water

Of the frog as it plunges in.

—Translation by William George Aston

On close inspection of Bashō's haiku, notice his use of seasonal words, called kigo in Japanese, with a kireji or a cutting word that juxtaposes two contrasting images or thoughts for effect as in these two haiku by Bashō (translators unknown):

The summer grasses.

All that remains

Of warriors’ dreams.

…….

When you say something,

The lip feel cold.

The Autumn wind.

(Source: masterpiece of japanese culture )

Also worth studying is the poetry of 18th Century haiku master, Yosa Buson, who was known for his idealized, descriptive haiku:

Short summer night.

A dewdrop

On the back of a hairy caterpillar.

More about Buson and Bashō (as well as other haiku masters) may be found in an online search. For starters, visit In the Homes of My Masters, A writer walks in Bashō’s Japan and Haiku Master Yosa Buson.

Well-known American Beat poet, Jack Kerouac, embraced the art of haiku and sought to adapt it to western language (English) as shown in his excerpt from "Reading Notes 1965":

Then I’ll invent

The American Haiku type:

The simple rhyming triolet:--

Seventeen syllables?

No, as I say, American Pops:--

Simple 3-line poems

The following poems by Kerouac demonstrate that American haiku (also called gendai or modern haiku) while devoid of syllabic patterns may be restrained with short simple lines but full of vivid imagery:

One flower

On the cliffside

Nodding at the canyon

…….

Nightfall,

boy smashing dandelions

with a stick.

…….

Looking for my cat

In the weeds,

I found a butterfly

Seize the moment for haiku

Educators wanting to break the cycle of syllabic “haiku” will be pleased to know that students adopt well to other methods. For example, when presented with samples of simple 3-line poems, students begin to hear haiku as "one breath poetry" which leads to writing it..

Jane Reichhold, a world-renowned American haiku poet, offers practical advice and perspective on teaching haiku to children of all ages. She offered the following (select) suggestions at the Ukiahaiku Festival Workshop:

• MOST IMPORTANT: every child can be a poet. Poetry should be seen as being used by everyone in the same way that we all hum or sing songs even though we are not pop stars. We learn to sing by singing the songs we learn from listening to others. But the greatest joy in singing is when we make up our own songs. If a teacher can instill this idea in the students, give them the empowerment, and then the knowledge to also write their own poetry, think how much richer their later lives will be. And because haiku is short, and can be as simple as the person wishes to make it, truly anyone capable of thinking can make a haiku.

• It has been so convenient to teach that haiku is a seventeen-syllable poem about nature, but as you can see this rule cannot always be applied in English – so drop it. The instruction that can be followed is the suggestion that the haiku contain three lines of short, long, short in a relationship.

• Enlarging the concept of ‘nature’ images. You do not have to limit the beginners with the range of subjects in nature either. Just encourage them to use images they perceive with their senses: hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching, because this is nature, too. Even six to eight words, not in a sentence, can be enough for a haiku. This gives a “can-do” feeling for even the least word-happy student.

For the complete set of suggestions by Ms. Reichhold, visit How to Haiku and scroll down to Eleven Helps For Teaching Haiku in Schools.

Last but not least, imagery in haiku is both literal and sensory and accessible to students as Canadian author/artist, Jessica Tremblay has shown. Tremblay is the creator of Old Pond Comics, a site dedicated to haiku, filled with cartoons that entertain and inform readers of all ages. The site features a tutorial on the art of haiku and sections on reading, creating and publishing haiku.

Haiku is meant to capture a moment through imagery and presence. As English speakers, it makes no sense to adhere to misguided interpretations of Japanese linguistic protocol and poetic rules. When we stop—or never even start—counting out syllables to form haiku, we untether ourselves from false notions and open up to the poetic process itself. We employ all our senses. Our attention and regard for the experience rewards us with discoveries made possible by that process—an “aha” moment or a shift in thinking or feeling. Such can be the delight of three simple lines of poetry. It will vary from person to person. But we know when we’ve met the essence of haiku. Let's take our students there!