What is Haiku?

There seems to be broadly-based agreement that a haiku poem written in English consists of three lines, seventeen syllables, arranged in the order 5-7-5.

Then there is not-so broad agreement that a haiku generally relates to natural things, and generally contains a reference to a season.

A humorous poem referring to human foibles, and using irony or satire, would, according to some, more correctly be called a senryu, rather than a haiku.

This fact has been lost on generations of elementary school teachers, whose young charges gladly fall on haiku as being a great poetic form because it has the supreme virtue of being short.

So, this stylish "haiku" ...

.

Haiku is easy

Although some don't make much sense,

Refrigerator.

.

... would more correctly be referred to as a senryu.

The difficulties in translating a poetic form from one language to another are many-fold, and the subtle differences between Japanese on - sound units - and English syllables have been vigorously debated at the nose-bleed level of ivory tower academia for decades.

Traditional haiku have a break, either at the end of the first line, or at the end of the second. Sometimes, this break is indicated with a punctuation sound (a kireji) which has no direct equivalent in the English language.

Despite the difficulties, or perhaps because they are blissfully ignorant of them, English-speakers have embraced the haiku form whole-heartedly.

The first authoritative work on haiku was published in English in 1949 by R.H. Blyth, an Englishman living in Japan. He has been criticised since for his narrow view of suitable topics for haiku, his dismissive attitude to women poets, and his insistence of a close relationship between haiku and Zen.

Perhaps he felt that way because the linguistic gymnastics required by the rules of haiku produce a lot of lines that sound like Zen koans.

His book did not anticipate that anyone would ever write original haiku in English, yet it became the vehicle my which many of the great writers of English haiku were introduced to the form.