Poetry: Haiku, Tanka

On Monday, we looked at common European poetic forms. Today, we'll look at some from Asia!

Haiku

Almost everyone is familiar with the haiku. It's a short form of Japanese poetry that does not rhyme. Traditional Japanese haiku have different rules from the English version, because of the differences in language. I will be exploring English haiku (mostly because I don't know Japanese).

English haiku tend to be more lax in the number of syllables, but everyone knows they are supposed to have three lines with a total of seventeen syllables (five in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third line).

A haiku is supposed to be a hint; an exercise in showing, not telling. They are also supposed to mention a season word, traditionally. They can employ a caesura (which looks like two slashes, like this: //) to compare two adjacent words.

I have a t-shirt with a popular silly haiku on it:

Haiku are easy

But sometimes they don't make sense

Refrigerator

There is also a form of Japanese poetry called senryu that is the same as a haiku, but haiku are usually about nature, while senryu are usually about people, and are dark and/or humorous. So really, my t-shirt more likely has a senryu on it, if you want to get technical.

Tanka

Tanka also come from Japan. They have five lines, with five syllables in the first and third lines, and seven syllables in the second, fourth and fifth lines. (It's like a haiku with two seven-syllable lines on the end of it.)

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There are hundreds of different types of poems from all over the world, but this week has been a small sample of the more popular ones here in America. I will be attempting most of these during NaPoWriMo in April.