The web is overflowing with haikus. This is a seventeen-syllable Japanese poem originally derived from the introductory section of a renga, a sort of poetic duel or collaboration between two or more poets. At some point the conception of the haiku as a poem arranged in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern developed, but some poets insist that it is a single line. Other conventions include some indication of what the season is. The haiku has enjoyed an enormous vogue in the United States.

CLICK HERE for one link that explains haiku. CLICK HERE  for an historical account of haiku and examples.

The best-known haiku is by Bashó:

  Furu-ike ya
  kawazu tobi-komu
  mizu-no-oto

  A quiet old pond--
  then a frog jumps into it
  with a sudden splash
                --trans. H. T. Kirby-Smith

Here is a twentieth-century American haiku on the death of Mike Quill, president of the transportation workers union of New York City, of a heart attack, in the 1960s:

When it snowed, he called
the transit strike and then died
of clogged arteries.
            --H. T. K.-S.

BACK TO TABLE OF FORMS