A Haiku is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, the pattern being three lines of five, seven, and five. Matsuo Basho is considered one of the four great masters of Haiku and his poem, “The Old Pond”, is a wonderful example of the style:
An old silent pond
A frog jumps into the pond—
Splash! Silence again.
Haikus originated from the Japanese hokku, which also follow the 5/7/5 rule. They create divergent imagery separated by a cutting word called a kireji. In the case of The Old Pond, the kireji is “splash”.
“A World of Dew” was written by another Haiku master, Kobayashi Issa:
A world of dew,
And within every dewdrop
A world of struggle.
If you’re paying attention, you’d be saying, “Wait, what??! That only has four syllables in the first line!” I don't want you to get too emotional here, it’s just because one of the syllables got lost in translation.
On April 17th, one of our friends sent out a group email. It was Haiku Poetry Day (which was news to me!) and she asked that we respond with our own haiku – the subject to be the pandemic and our experience with it. (She was nice enough to tell us the construction of a Haiku - I know I would’ve had to look it up!). There were some great responses – the authors will remain anonymous 😉
covid quarantine
formidable reminder
to value teachers
***** Virus hurts the old
Immune system is not bold
Oops that's me I'm told
*****
Went to pizza shop
With my mask firmly in place
Stick Up?? No - Pick Up.
****
Late to this party
Searching for the perfect mask
But how will I drink? ****
Got the Covid blues
I’m lookin’ like Cousin It
What’s a girl to do?
Ok - it's about 7 months until the next Haiku Poetry Day so you have plenty of time to come up with something good! Or, if you have one now, share it with us - we'd love to hear from you!
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