A mountain village

Under the pilled-up snow

The sound of water

-Masaoka Shiki

That was a haiku! A haiku is a traditional poem that originates from Japan and surfaced around the 17th century. It is a type of poem that is mainly used to represent nature, love, life, and deep concepts. What makes haikus a great go to for students is that, when given the task to write a poem they are short and are still able to convey a strong message. They come with a small set of “rules” as other types of poems do. 

First: the poem must consist of three lines. Second: line one and three must have 5 syllables and line two must have 7. Finally: the poem must consist of a sentence and a fragment. Rule three isn’t always used, but adds into the uniqueness of the haiku. So now that you know the rules, how do you learn how to write a haiku? It’s simple; just sit down and try it out, and it doesn’t have to be about something serious. For example, I had my brother write a few and he picked something out randomly (a duck), and did a quick haiku. He said, “It didn’t take much time and it was kinda fun”.

Everyone gets stuck when you are one syllable over or can’t find the words you want to convey your thoughts. You can use tools online to find synonyms, and if you are stuck for a while, I suggest you just start over the line or the entire poem. I also had another student Rileigh Bowen try out a haiku and she wrote about some things on her desk. She said that “the haiku was easy to learn, and it was fun because it was quick.”

The only problem anyone I had write one ran into was making a line a syllable or two longer and having to cut it down while keeping the meaning of the line. The biggest thing anyone can do is just write a few about anything and by then you will understand the basics and writing them won’t take as long or as many tries to find the word you need. So whatever you’re doing right now, just take a second and write a haiku; it won’t take long and you might’ve just had a bit of fun or a distraction from whatever is going on in your life.