Hello. Toni (Kanzensakura) here. I am happy today to talk with you all about Japanese poetic forms. I originally was going to discuss four forms but have gone instead with just two. Perhaps at another time, i can complete the other two forms, tanka being one. Each form is at least one post on its own. I will be discussing haiku and senryu – unidentical twins. I went to school with two sets of twins; one set, their mothers got them mixed up. The other set – two brothers – one with ginger hair and brown eyes, plump, and full of mischief. The other twin had brown hair, brown eyes, thin, studious and musical.
So we have a set of unidentical twins here – same family, same DNA, some similar but unalike characteristics. I will begin with a quote attributed to Basho. Jane Reichold, renowned scholar of Japanese poetic form, particularly haiku quoted this and attributed to Basho. I cannot find the quote anywhere else, I am sorry. But it is an excellent quote and perfect for any form. “First you learn the rules and then forget them.” This does not mean ignore the rules, it means you practice the rules so well you follow withou thinking, but FIRST you learn the rules.
How to write haiku
1) Haiku are short poems with – 1) Three lines with a 5-7-5 syllable count (2) a kigo – season season word in the poem denoting when when the poem occurs (3) a kireji& or cutting word. This occurs in the second line and draws the contrast between the first and third lines. The third line is an aha! or surprise ending (4) haiku are about nature/changing seasons (5) haiku poems do not focus or “say” what the person feels; rather it shows the details that made the person feel as they did. For example, falling leaves made the person think of loss. The poem does not say, today the falling leaves made me think of endings and loss. The haiku below I wrote during a long period of late winter, icy cold rain reflects how it made me feel.
Spits of icy rain
Bitter wind tossing tree tops –
Spring seems distant dream
Haiku are about nature. You do not have to be Japanese or write in Japanese to write proper haiku. You only need to be observant. Japanese aesthtics are in tune with this observation of sensitivity to nature and change. They have 50+ words for rain, specific words. One of my favorites is kisame – rain that drips from tree branches. Hisame – very cold winter rain; yuudachi – evening rain. These are simple examples. For autumn leaves – momiji – red maple leaves. Koyo – all red leaves. Komorebi – the quality of light through leaves.
Japanese Aesththics
Again, you do not have to be Japanese. There are things that translate to English and can be incorporated. These are a few simple concepts: mujo – change or impermanence. The Buddha said, All is transient, nothing is fixed. This is an important concept for their lives, art, poetry. Seasons change. Mono no aware – empathy toward things, awareness of impermanence, wistful or gentle sadness at their passing, gentles sadness that this is part of life. And again, observation of nature and change in the seasons.
Try this: look out your window or better, go outside. Look around you, look at the sky, notice the clouds, the smell of the air, the sounds of nature or, the silence. Now, out of the big picture, focus your poetry camera on a deeper detail: except for the sound of a distant crow, there is silence; only one tree has a few tattered leaves remaining, all other trees are bare; there is a smell of pine or spruce in the air. What did you feel with one or two of the enhanced observations? How cakigon you express that objectively? How can you convey that sadness, loneliness, joy, acceptance without being blunt? Haiku poems are not a bunch of outlaws riding into town and shooting up the place.
Kigo – Season word/phrase
These are words essential to haiku and should be in the haiku. I usually put mine in the frst line. There are saijiki, databases of kigo, usually Japanese. However, these can change and be relevant to your area of the world. Festivals: Diwali, Christmas, Hannuka, Momiji Gari, Hanami. Plants/flowers: cherry blossoms, rice, corn, pumpkins, golden rod, lotus. Celestial: Harvest moon, Hunters Moon, Milky Way. Activities: ice fishing, planting crops, harvesting crops, baseball, county fair. Nature: cicada, red maples, mosquitos, robins, hawk, honeysuckle,snow, whale watching. Humanity – sun bathing, shoveling snow, snowman, kites, kite flying, mowing the lawn. What plants, animals, insects, weather events, foods eaten, etc. Occur yearly in your area? Is there an ongoing event such as Lake Festival, Christmas play, etc? Are there seasonal foods – pumpkin pie, field peas, collards, new cheese, white fish/pike, oysters? Again, it is paying attention to your world and how these season changes affect you or the people around you?
Cutting Word or phrase – kireji
Old pond, Frog jumps in, Sound of splash
We go from image to sound in this. The second line acts as the kireji. In Japanese: furu-ike ya, kawazu tobikomu, mizo no oto. In the Japanese you have the 5-7-5, the season word is frog.
There is no sound equivalent in English. A short dash can act as that cutting sound or brief aspiration. No punctuation in English haiku except for long dash or ellipses. The kireji occurs after the 5th or 12th onji (syllable) to create a pause between two thoughts.
Again, this is a simple explanation. It gets more complicated. I have been writing haiku for over half of my life. I have studied and studied under teachers more experience than me. First, I learned the rules.
Simple Senryu
The boisterous twin of haiku: three lines, 5-7-5 syllable count. Senryu do not require the subject to be nature or change but can be used. Senryu are/can be personal and are often humorous and/or sarcastic. Personal pronouns can be used. NOTE: In any Japanese poetic forms, vulgar or swear words are NOT used. I think this rule can be used for any form. The Japanese feel the point can be gotten across without vulgarity. I totally agree.
For those who do not feel following rules is not a requirement, I can only say, next time you order a BLT and get instead, peanut butter, sauerkraut, and onions, do not complain. Or, if you are driving and exceed the spped limit, you may get a traffic. I end with a haiku about the sudden death of a friend this summer. I wrote of her time with us, the blessing of her friendship, and how her friends grieve and remember that blessing.
Summer night is long
Dew falls but fades at morning –
Grasses remember.
I hope you all will try your hand at writing haiku and the simpler, fun senryu. There is no Linky for this is a pubtalk but you are welcome to submit in the comment section.
About Toni – wrote my first haiku at the age of six. It is my favorite and most loved poetic form. I also enjoy writing haibun, tanka, and bussokusekika (tanka plus one additional seven syllable line). I have had a long and deep love of Japan and her culture and frequently travelled to Japan. Haiku are original and are copyrighted and cannot be used or copied without my permission.
dVerse 
Hi everyone ! Toni will be by shortly ~ Here’s mine:
roses and candles
light up the bleak Paris street-
fall is bleeding sky
~0~
black is the day when
night sky is torn by bullets-
cold steeps my tears blue
Thanks Toni for reminding us of the classic Japanese forms ~
Those are very timely and sad poems Grace, it has been hard to keep focus on what’s need to be done after this weekend.
Truly sad and heartbreaking to read and also what is happening after this event ~
Thanks Bjorn~
They really do have much meaning. Thank you.
on the scarecrow’s coat
morning mist condensed – as gems
beggar’s autumn gift
It was a long while since I composed haiku… the 5-7-5 syllable felt awkward, but I tried. Scarecrow is one of my favorite traditional kigo.
Lovely one Bjorn ~ I have also ceased to count the syllables as the seasonal symbols and cutting word are more important for me ~
I do like this! Scarecrows are a wonderful kigo and so much can be written around them. I have been doing the 5-7-5 so long, it is one of those “forgotten” rules. I use the same count when writing in Japanese and when I translate, I am usually able to do the 5-7-5 in English. I’m not as picky about the syllables as I am the kigo and kireji. Those to me are non-negotiable.
You should do more haiku. This is a bravissimo!
I don’t have any haiku to share today, but I do want to stop in and thank you, Toni, for the interesting and informative article. I am sure that I generally do not write a ‘true’ haiku by your definition; but it is interesting to read the information about them. I appreciate your knowledge AND your research.
I did write quite a lot of “true” haiku, and the only thing I disagree with is the necessity for syllable count… the correspondence between a syllable between languages is not obvious, so generally I have often ceased to count them..
Yes, this is a feeling I can identify with as well… For example, syllables in Japanese would not translate into English syllables and keep the same meaning.
Exactly. The number of syllables often do not count but the kigo and kireji are vital. I’ve been doing the counting for so long, it is automatic. But again, that doesn’t matter. You can translate into English and have the same meaning as in the Basho haiku, but the syllable count is lost. But again, it doesn’t matter. The meaning and season word and kireji do translate. Like one I wrote years ago:
Spring chases
winter away –
daffodils laugh.
Thank you for stopping by! Research, result of courses taken in US, a couple in Tokyo, some under “masters”. They are such a very old poetic form and so interesting in the various writers and teachers of, and how they go through the long Japanese history. Thank you for your kindness in other things relating to this post as well.
Hello everyone. Back from my “surprise” birthday party and returned to a home with power. We lost power sometime during sleeping hours due to a rather horrific multi car accident. But I am here now.
Grace, the haiku and senryu are so lovely and sad. Not many people here today so we can all just sit and be cozy at one large table. In honor of my birthday, we have several bottles of excellent French champagne. So we can toast my birthday and, toast the valiant and resilient spirits of the French people and offer homage to those who were murdered and those who knew and grieve for them.
Oh a great and happy cheer for you Toni, I will put some extra firewood in before heading to bed.
Hooray!!!!! Extra firewood for everyone! I love a wood fire. And a Star Wars themed party for an old lady. Gotta love. Sleep sweetly.
Happy Birthday, Toni!
Thank you!
Happy happy birthday Toni ~ I raise my glass to you ~
Thank you! It was a “surprise” party which I found out about earlier – a Star Wars themed party for an old lady. It was most fun.
Toni, your explication of the classic haiku clears up lot for me. I often wondered why when I thought I was writing a haiku, you sweetly, generously, would comment that you liked my stirring senryu. Now I understand, & thank for not pointing out that perhaps I have never written a classic haiku. But the Basho quote sums up my poetic instincts. I don’t think Kerouac wrote classic haiku either. Haibun is my favorite form these days, but I expand the parameters & have fun with it. For me, this is the strength of attempting to write within classic forms, because I believe it can/does broaden the scope & depth of your future writing. Your expertise in Japanese forms is very enlightening; thanks.
Damn, this computer/site glitch has happened to me before. My lengthy comment disappeared when I clicked “post”, only to show up later after I endeavor to restate & repost it. So let’s hope that’s the case here; smile.
Oh Glenn, my computer has been behaving so badly for several months, I am tempted to take an axe to it.
I’ve how entranced you have become with haibun. It is a wonderful mix, isn’t t? For those of us rebels, rules can be sometimes constrictive but, first you have to learn and practice them. If you do not write with kigo and kireji, you are not writing a haiku. I*t is something else, unless it is senryu, which you wonderfully. The syllable count is important, but more so, the kigo and kireji. Otherwise, it is a 5-7-5 poem. We follow and respect the rules for sonnets, ghazals, terza rima, etc. The same respect should be given to haiku. I know many people who change things around and call it haiku, but it isn’t. I think with your dramatic flair and ability, you could write amazing haiku. For all its restraint, it is a very dramatic form. The Winter’s tale comes to mind: “Here’s flowers for you; hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold. The Winter’s Tale, Act 4, Sc.4” Hot lavender, wow, what a kigo!!!! Your use of words and images often knock me back in my seat. And I do like it when you do one of your ripsnorting senryu. I snap my fingers going, yeah man, that’s it, that’s it.
weighted by first snow
last leaf clinging for a while –
a gentle rustling
Just another favourite kigo before I go to bed…
Beautiful. My first favorite kigo – hatsuyuki – first snow. There is something almost holy about it. Thank you Bjorn. This is a true mono no aware beauty of a haiku.
Beautiful haiku Bjorn ~
Just stopping in to say hello and thank Toni for the great explanations. And OH! Those words for rain! I must write something about “kisame.” LOVE it.
Hope to write something later.
I have one I wrote a bit ago already on my webpage. I think you will so enjoy a haiku about that and the images it inspires. It truly is a lovely image. When I first heard that word, I began looking at rain and branches more intently. The drops as they dripped reminded me of another aesthetic – chinmouko – a specific silence – the space between the notes, what your imagination fills in. I can also predict a beauty of a haiku or other poem from you about that word.
I was so pleased with Abrha sharing his information and pictures about Diwali and the lanterns, I was moved to borrow a seasonal word from across the world and to write this for the events of this past weekend:
Diwali lanterns
Float into the darkness – may
Their light heal us all.
Toni, one thing I am not clear about. Let’s take a haiku of Basho written in Japanese. Does his haiku have a 5 – 7 – 5 syllable count in the Japanese language? If so, and it is translated into English, is it not near impossible to have the exact same meaning and choose words which have 5-7-5 syllable count in English?
I would think that if a Japanese haiku were translated exactly according to MEANING, the English syllable count might be different if one wanted to keep the SAME meaning.
What are your thoughts?
I agree. The Japanese of the poem does count to 5-7-5, you just have to know how to pronounce it. The syllable count really doesn’t define haiku, per se, as when Japanese is translated. In English, the 5-7-5 is easily do-able. What is important is that the season and cutting word/phrase is used. I replied to up further with a haiku that is not 5-7-5. I wrote it in Japanese originally and it was the count. But the meaning isn’t lost nor the kigo and kireji. Sometimes, the English translation is more, sometimes less. But spirit, tone, season, kireji will translate.
Mary, the first line – furu-ike ya – pronounces to: foo-roo eek-kay yah. Japanese is a hard language and most of the time, it has to do with the pronunciation of it as compared to how we pronounce words in English.
Thank you, Toni, for your explanations. I appreciate them greatly.
Always happy to do so. My friend who died this past summer, we often spent time talking and the subject of several 8 hour conversations (until our phone batteries died) consisted of this sort of thing. One of the things I miss is Peggie and how we shared so much with each other and got each other’s brains to going.
Happy Birthday, Toni…a toast to you and the resilient people of France!! Thanks for sharing your haiku expertise. Like Glenn, I wonder if any of my past efforts were true haiku or senryu or just 5-7-5 verse! Here’s a link to a 2-part “haiku” I wrote a month ago (in memory of a friend). I think the first may pass as haiku and the second more senryu? But perhaps neither…feel free to tell me what you think, Toni (ether here or in my blog comments). Thank you 🙂
http://madhatterpoetry.com/2015/10/12/a-fragile-beauty/
I left on your comment section. I will say here – perfection. And how I now have tears for this precious friend and for your losing her.
Thank you, Toni, for your comments…and tears. I believe she lives on…in God’s presence and in our memories.
So do I.
Happy belated birthday,. I arrive lateish, after computer glitches (not computer so much as server, in my case). Speaking of twins, this explains why facebook decided we are! I have not been attempting haiku as long as you, only for the last seven years, but still. Loved reading them, or what I thought were haiku (I now don’t think Kerouac, for one, really wrote any). I started trying to write them, though, not so much for their own sake as to learn how to add such simplicity and clarity to my other poetry.
Of course I very soon fell in love with them for their own sake, and discovered they are highly addictive. I also formed the opinion that they are at once the easiest and most difficult form to write. Easy enough to follow the rules, but not to get a resulting ‘aha!’ moment.
For several years I did 5-7-5 syllables (in English; I don’t know Japanese) then I read that many English-language hakiuists prefer short-long-short, for the reason that English syllables are so much longer than what equates to them in Japanese. So I started doing that, resulting in briefer lines, which I like. I do still try, often, for a matching syllable count in 1st and 3rd lines.
As for season word, I find that the Northern Hemisphere forget we exist here down South, and also different countries have different flora and fauna. If I mention lorikeets, any Aussie would know I refer to Spring, but I bet most Japanese people wouldn’t. If you say ‘September’, you will not intend the associations that my mind would make to that month. Having to Google rather inhibits the impact of the poem! So I am wary of trying to use one seasonal word unless it is the word for the season itself, or something about the temperature. (I don’t have snow where I live, and rain can come in any season.) I do, but don’t expect it will necessarily resonate with readers; also I need more clues from the haiku I read than just one, perhaps incomprehensible, season word. Though of course, many can be deeply appreciated without such knowledge. I sometimes try to convey the season in other ways, and sometimes ignore it.
Similarly with kireji. Sometimes mine is a dash; more often a turn of thought with no extra identification, but which I hope is obvious anyway.
Yes, I did learn the rules but now I often depart from them. I have also been known to write ‘free verse sonnets’ which nevertheless have enough features to be recognised as sonnets. (I do write more formal sonnets too.) And, horror of horrors, “free’ (or free-ish) ghazals as well. I love to experiment! And I always steep myself in writing to the rules first.
Haiku led me into a love of all short forms, particularly the Asian ones, including of course senryu. I have also had fun with both Collum and Kelly lunes, and with American sentences, those attempts to make an English-language equivalent to haiku.
My great love became the tanka, which also evolved for me into short-long-short-long-long rather than a strict syllable count in English. I am now very keen to try the bussoku-sekika.
Ha I think you, Victoria, and I are triplets!!! I’m not as picky on the 5-7-5. Short, long, short works fine I think. Just gotta have the season and cutting words. Lorikeet. I have looked that up now. Neato. That’s why I tried to stress that they are particular to your location. I know many Japanese have not heard of butterbeans, but they are summer! I wish I knew more of the season words for the incredible Oz but then, I am not an Aussie and wouldn’t do justice. but I can write a mean Sounthern one. The bussokusekika just have one extra line added. That’s it. For us Ramblers, it gives us a few more syllables. I am strict about the rules. How I was trained and how I’ve been writing for decades. I’m a retired engineer and we are anal folk! My kireji is often a dash as well. LOL, stole that from Emily Dickinson.
I’ve often thought the seasonal words must be very hard for those living in the southern hemisphere, so you’ve just confirmed that. Of course, the specific plant and animal references can be tricky as well, which is why I sometimes see footnotes on haikus which are far longer than the poems themselves.
I think there are kigo developed for southen hemisphere.. for nordic countries, for US.. so it’s just about to find them. It’s like Toni said, some of the festivals seem artificial for me… be Christmas, Advent or Easter definitely should work as kigo in my opinion. Personally I suggested rapeseed as an early summer kigo once.
I agree. Rapeseed is interesting and when in bloom in massive fields of yellow – gorgeous! But I have not seen in US and most people would draw a blank at it. I’ve seen it in Japan and some parts of Europe. A comparable kigo would be sunflowers. The state of Kansas has huge fields of them, used for making oil and birdseed and thankfully, snacks. Huge fields of gold and all around them, birds fluttering and eat the seeds before they are harvested. The established festivals like Christmas, Diwali, Hannukah – all work for me as well. We don’t all live in one small area of the world. I would like to find a Southern hemisphere directory just because I am curious. I found that lorikeet would be a spring kigo for them! It is hard for me to write of seasonal things with which I have not experienced. In Wisconsin and Minnesota, ice fishing would be a seasonal activity. Never done it, don’t want to do it either.
Skating would be a perfect Kigo for me… 🙂
Of course! That’s what I feel about kigo exactly. Picking blackberries for me!
Yes dears, but the established festivals have different association in the Southern Hemisphere too – Christmas in high summer, for instance. I think that season words were originally, in Japan, a kind of short-cut or code, saving the writer from having to go into a lot of detail. But now that haiku are international, this no longer applies, and they could mislead some readers rather than enlighten. It’s tricky, is all I’m saying. However I agree about skating, and picking blackberries or any fruit.
Perhaps. My point is, one doesn’t have to be Japanese or use Japanese kigo to write proper haiku. We don’t all live in Japan but we can still respect the rules and the sentiments and aesthetics. I have no problem where people use their local repeating kigo and write something they know and feel deeply about. And yes, the season words, because haiku is about the changing seasons, tell us when the haiku is written. Rapeseed means nothing to me unless I google it. By the same token, butterbean means a lot to me. And I think we can all relate to snow, even if one doesn’t have it. People in Louisiana would relate to a country that plants and harvest rice, for example. If a friend of mine from Oz wrote about Christmas I know it is summer. A lorikeet, spring. We live in a wider world and the more we know about each other, the more we hopefully, understand each other and our hearts. A haiku without season and cutting words is just a short poem.
There are massive saijiki composed of thousands of kigo. Some are obscure and mean something only to the writer – so like you, I give an explanation. A favorite Southern US kigo would be butterbean. Like a lima but a little softer, buttery green flavored, grows and picked in the summer. You’ll find them on family owned restaurant menus or as specials in some trendy ones. We love them so much, we have made up folk songs about them. So many people are strict about the kigo being Japanese. Many people do not know harvesting rice, making mocha in the new year, etc. If you read Bjorn’s comment about this in this string, you’ll get another insight. I say, use what you know that is seasonal in nature, celestial, customs, food…Established festivals work fine for they are not “new” but have been around for centuries – Christmas, Hannukah, Advent, Diwali, Hanami…I have to laugh. When I wrote the haiku River of Heaven, the explanation was longer than the haiku! But I think it is good for people to learn and get a different perspective on things.
And your article has certainly been very instructive indeed – really enjoyed it!
I just saw on the news – The Eiffel Tower is again lit – in glorious blue, white, and red, like the French flag – hooray! God bless them all.
Hooray!
Happy Birthday, Toni! I hope you had a lovely time at your “surprise” party…haha. I appreciate all the instruction and information that you provided here. When I first learned about haiku, there was no mention of the senryu and therefore I happily wrote all kinds of senryu thinking they were haiku. Well, I finally caught on through the years. I truly appreciate a well written haiku. There’s nothing quite like them to take you from one image to another in such a few words.
Here are my offerings as my birthday “gift” to you:
withering decline
weak, slow, soft, decaying breath
death gently enters
winter’s nightfall
fallen snow begins melting
horizon blushes
Gayle ~
Thank you! These are so wonderful. I like and appreciate a well written haiku as well. My husband conspired to have a few friends take time from work and rented a party room at the cinema. These rooms are mainly used for kids movie parties. We had cake, ice cream, popcorn of course and a huge glass wall looked out on the movie. Because mainly for kids, he chose the Star Wars theme and we sat and enjoyed the new James Bond. And what is cool, he gave me one of the original Star Wars movie posters. Just what any kid would want!!! I truly enjoyed it and so did my friends. 8 big kids in one room.
Sounds great…very nice. 🙂
Thank you for this interesting article. I have been wondering what a senryu is. Here’s my effort – not sure if it works as a classic haiku but here’s the link anyway http://artifactsandfictions.com/2015/11/17/tree-talk/
Hope you enjoyed your surprise party, Toni, and I’m sorry I missed the pub talk last night. Aside from the usual chauffering duties, I also had a friend come to visit from Germany, a friend I hadn’t seen in years. It was her birthday, so I’d prepared cake and… one of the presents was a translation of Genji Monogatari, since she also likes all things Japanese.
As you know, I’m very fond of Japanese poetic forms as well, although I’m not sure I can always distinguish between a haiku and a senryu – certainly not in my own poetry! One of my favourite so-called haiku writers is Issa – and he actually seems to write more senryu than haiku by this definition. For example:
Mosquito at my ear—
does he think
I’m deaf?
or
Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.
(This also shows the difficulties of translating this form into English while keeping the syllable count.)
And yet of course his most famous one is the heart-rending, written when his beloved first child died:
露の世は露の世ながらさりながら
Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara
which I roughly translate as:
The word of dew is the world of dew… and yet, and yet…
I agree. I am not as strict on the syllable count as about kigo and kireji. When translating from Japanese, you may get fewer syllables or more. Because I have been so trained in syllables, I write them without thinking. Because I learned the rules. When I translate, I don’t worry. When I write in English, I don’t worry. I find it hard and so do others to differentiate between senryu and haiku. Many of the “greats” wrote haiku before senryu were developed. In the evolution of the form, the two split at that time. Haiku did a small development into being less personal and senryu became the opposite. I make a very conscious effort to difference between my senryu and haiku and in these degenerate times when anyone thinks any 5-7-5 poem is haiku, I will state – this is senryu, as I did in my last haibun. Issa was such a human poet – I love the one where he grumbles about his wife but….wishes she was there to annoy him. Dew is often to me a true symbol of mujo and mono no aware. I probably have used it too much. But as Issa’s haiku about the death of his son, you point out how heartrending it truly is.
I am glad you had your friend visit and to spend such a happy time with her! And what a wonderful gift you gave her. Friends….they keep us going so many times.
This is the BEST explanation of haiku and senyru I’ve ever read or heard. Thank you.
Snow limning branches
Shimmering insubstantial
A banquet of light.
It’s 2:30 AM. Will return in the morning to read.
Thank you Victoria, oh most worthy sister! And the haiku – oh my heart, how beautiful. I hope you post this on your page as well. It needs to be read by many.
I also love what Toni says about breaing all the rules: in order to do that, first you have to know the rules.
I remember a teacher once told a friend of mine that her daughter’s poorly spelled, ungrammatical, illegible etc. etc. composition deserved the A+ with a sticker, because it was creative. And my friend said: ‘She can be creative once she has mastered spelling and grammar and learnt to write her S, D and B the right way round.’ Not quite the same thing, but it stuck with me. Or like in ballet: once you start exploring all sorts of new things in modern ballet, you can do it so much better if you have been classically trained to begin with…
I’ve copied this entire article to my computer for future reference. Hope that’s okay. It does say who it’s written by – I always credit the author even if it’s only for my own personal and private use. There’s much to refer to and research.
Here in the south (southern tip of Africa) we have serious thunderstorms in summer.
Silenced sparrow chirps
then confidently holds forth
– thunder abated
Thank you so much. I always like to give credit for something by someone else I use as well. It is a kindness and it is the honorable thing to do. I do like the haiku! Sparrows are a wonderful kigo and you did wonderfully on this. It is a perfect haiku.
I posted a comment and it disappeared! I’ve copied this entire article to my computer, credited Kazensakura obviously even if it’s for my private use. There’s much to refer to and research.
Silenced sparrow chirps
then confidently holds forth
– thunder abated
I’ve had several people comment about disappearing comments. WP does that often when they are working on things. But it “took” the first time on this page. But I am glad you reposted just in case. It would have been a true loss if that excellent haiku had disappeared.
Thank you for the inspiration again and with flowers from my blog I have offered this for Paris.
Blue Iris stands tall
White blossoms radiate light
Red poppies seed fields
I like the way you explain haiku and I was taught by my English teacher that a haiku should not be destructive.
I love the colors of Paris in your haiku ~
Thanks, those colours are everywhere.
Thanks, Grace, and just to say I like your poems but the connections to comment don’t always work.
frozen gray sky weeps,
waiting still for indigo
to unzip the clouds.
.
Haiku is in no way my strongpoint, but it was fun to try. Thank you, Toni.
Beautiful De ~