How to Haiku
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Take Your Pick
Jane Reichhold

Haiku, which seem so light, free and spontaneous, are built on discipline. If you've a desire to write haiku, you are manifesting a desire for a few more rules in your life. And rules aren't bad as long as they are your rules for your work.
You've heard Robert Frost's saying poetry without rules is like a tennis match without a net and it is true also for haiku. And Basho had his motto: "Learn the rules; and then forget them."
But first he said, "Learn the rules." If you are at that stage of the game (we are all, at all times, students), here are some old and new rules. You can't physically follow all of these, because they conflict, but among them I would hope you'd pick a set just for you. Then write down your thoughts, impressions, and feelings while following your own rules.
As soon as you get proficient (you will notice your haiku all sound alike) it's time to raise the tennis net by picking a new rule or so, either from this list or one you've made up from reading and admiring other haiku, or, and this is possible and not treason, from other poetry genre.
Here we go:

1. Seventeen syllables in one line.

2. Seventeen syllables written in three lines.





7. Write what can be said in one breath.






fire-white halo
at the moment of eclipse
I notice your face


two things ready
but not touching the space between



16. Use of personal pronouns written in the lower case. Example: i am a ...

17. Eliminating all the possible uses of gerunds (ing endings on wording).

18. Study and check on articles. Do you use too many the's? too little? all the same in one poem or varied?

19. Use of common sentence syntax in both phrases.

20. Use of sentence fragments.


22. Save the "punch line" for the end line.





27. Use only concrete images.

28. Invent lyrical expressions for the image.






34. Use of paradox.

35. Use of puns and word plays.

36. Write of the impossible in an ordinary way.






42. Avoid all reference to yourself in the haiku.


44. Use no punctuation for ambiguity.

45. Use all normal sentence punctuation
: = a full stop
; = a half stop or pause
... = something left unsaid
, = a slight pause
-- = saying the same thing in other words
. = full stop

46. Capitalize the first word of every line.

47. Capitalize the first word only.

48. Capitalize proper names according to English rules.

49. All words in lower case.

50. All words in upper case.

51. Avoid rhymes.

52. Rhyme last words in the first and third lines.

53. Use rhymes in other places within the haiku.


twitching tufted tail
a toasty, tawny tummy:
a tired tiger

55. Use of words' sounds to echo feeling.

56. Always end the haiku with a noun.

57. Write haiku only from an "ah-ha" moment.


59. Avoid too many (or all) verbs.

60. Cut out prepositions (in - on - at - among - between) whenever possible; especially in the short 1/3 phrase.

61. Eliminate adverbs.

62. Don't use more than one modifier per noun. This use should be limited to the absolute sense of the haiku.


64. Treat your haiku like poetry; it's not a greeting card verse.


*** This article was recently {when was that?] published in Romanian in the periodical for The Constanta Haiku Society -- Albatross.




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Copyright © Jane Reichhold 2011.

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