HAIKU
- This ancient form of poem writing is renowned
for its small size as well as the precise
punctuation and syllables needed on its three
lines. It is of ancient Asian origin.
-Haiku's are composed of 3 lines, each a phrase.
The first line typically has 5 syllables, second
line has 7 and the 3rd and last line repeats
another 5. In addition there is a seasonal
reference included.
Mellow May
Mellow, mild, May day,
calling children out to play.
Summer's on her way!
Butterflies in trees,
brilliant sunsets, starry eves.
Time for ice cream, please!
1 Many haikus are
1. Go for a walk in nature.
inspired by objects in the natural world, such as
trees, rocks, mountains, and flowers. To get ideas
for your poem, take a walk in a park nearby or go
for a hike in the woods. Head to a mountain trail
or a body of water like a river, lake, or beach.
Spend some time in nature and observe it so you
can get ideas for the poem.
If you can’t go outside for a walk in an area with
nature, try looking at nature photographs and art
in books or online. Find a particular nature scene
or object in nature like a tree or flower
2.Focus on a season or seasonal event
Haikus can also be about a season, such as fall,
spring, winter, or summer. You can also focus on a
natural event that happens at a certain time of
year, such as the blooming of the cherry blossom
trees in your neighborhood or the salmon run in
the river near your house.
– Seasonal haikus often focus on a specific detail about
the season, naming the season in the poem. Writing
about a season can be a fun way for you to describe a
particular detail you love about that time of year.
Choose a person or object as your
subject.
Haikus do not all have to be about nature or the
seasons. You can also choose a particular
person or object as inspiration for the poem.
Maybe you want to write a funny haiku about
your dog. Or perhaps you want to write a
thoughtful haiku about your childhood toy.]
How to Write Haiku
1.Follow the line and syllable
structure of a haiku. Haikus follow a
strict form: three lines, with a 5-7-5
syllable structure. That means the
first line will have five syllables, the
second line will have seven syllables,
and the last line will have five
syllables.
2 Describe the subject with sensory detail. Haikus
...
are meant to give the reader a brief sense of the
subject using the senses. Think about how your
subject smells, feels, sounds, tastes, and looks.
Describe the subject using your senses so it
comes alive for your reader and feels powerful on
the page.
– For example, you may write about the “musky scent
of the pine needles” or the “bitter taste of the
morning air.”
– If you are writing a haiku about a particular subject,
such as your dog, you may describe the “clacking of its
nails on the tile” or the “damp fur of wet dog.”
3.Use concrete images and
descriptions. Avoid abstract or
vague descriptions. Instead, go
for concrete images that are easy
for the reader to visualize. Rather
than using metaphor or simile,
try describing the subject with
details that are particular and
unique.
• 4. how the haiku to others. Get feedback
from others about the haiku. Ask friends,
family members, and peers what they think of
the haiku. Pose questions about whether the
haiku embodies a moment in nature or a
season.
– If you wrote a haiku about a particular subject or
object, ask others if they think the haiku does a
good job of exploring it.
• 5. Center the haiku on the page when it’s
done. Place the haiku in the center of the
page and center the lines so it forms a
diamond shape. This is how haikus are
traditionally formatted.
– You can also add a short title at the top of the
haiku, such as “Autumn” or “Dog.” Avoid long,
wordy titles.
– Many haikus do not have titles. It is not absolutely
necessary that you title your haiku poem.
Read Examples of Haiku
• To get a better sense of the genre, read haikus
that are well known and considered good
examples of the form. You can find examples
in books or online. Read haikus that are about
nature and other subjects. You may read:
– Haikus by the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho.
– Haikus by the Japanese poet Yosa Buson.
-From the Italian sonetto, which means “a
little sound or song," the sonnet is a popular
classical form that has compelled poets for
centuries.
-Traditionally, the sonnet is a fourteen-line poem
written in iambic pentameter, which employ
one of several rhyme schemes and adhere to a
tightly structured thematic organization. Two
sonnet forms provide the models from which
all other sonnets are formed: the Petrarchan
and the Shakespearean.
SONNET
a short rhyming poem with 14 lines. The
original sonnet form was invented in the
13/14th century by Dante and an Italian
philosopher named Francisco Petrarch. The
form remained largely unknown until it was
found and developed by writers such as
Shakespeare. Sonnets use iambic meter in
each line and use line-ending rhymes.
Petrarchan/ Italian Sonnet
- The first and most common sonnet.
- Named after one of its greatest practitioners, the
Italian poet Petrarch, the Petrarchan
-is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first eight
lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final six
lines).
- The tightly woven rhyme scheme, abba, abba,
cdecde or cdcdcd
- Petrarchan presents an argument, observation,
question, or some other answerable charge in the
octave, a turn, or volta, occurs between the eighth and
ninth lines. This turn marks a shift in the direction of
the foregoing argument or narrative, turning the sestet
into the vehicle for the counterargument, clarification,
or whatever answer the octave demands.
How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Example of Petrarchan sonnet
• In what bright realm, what sphere of radiant thought
Did Nature find the model whence she drew
That delicate dazzling image where we view
Here on this earth what she in heaven wrought
What fountain-haunting nymph, what dryad, sought
In groves, such golden tresses ever threw
Upon the gust? What heart such virtues knew?—
Though her chief virtue with my death is fraught.
He looks in vain for heavenly beauty, he
Who never looked upon her perfect eyes,
The vivid blue orbs turning brilliantly –
He does not know how Love yields and denies;
He only knows, who knows how sweetly she
Can talk and laugh, the sweetness of her sighs.
A
B
B
A
A
B
B
A
C
D
C
D
C
D
• The final couplet often exhibits a turn or volta
containing a shift in perspective , or makes a
witty comment about the foregoing material.
Shakespearean / English Sonnet
• Has fourteen lines are divided into three 4 lines ,
or quatrains , and the final two lines or “couplet “.
The quatrains have a rhyme scheme of ABAB
CDCD EFEF , with final couplet rhyming GG.
• Commonly use the three quatrains to reflect on a
given situation in slightly different ways ,
although they do sometimes follow the
Petrarchan octave –sestet of division of material
instead
Example of Shakespearean sonnet
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
and often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G
This ancient form of poem writing is
renowned for its small size as well as the precise
punctuation and syllables needed on its three
lines. It is of ancient Japanese origin. It contains
17 syllables in 3 lines of five, seven, five. Haiku
poems are typically about nature and usually
about a specific season. Writing a haiku requires
intense effort but the poem is well worth it. It is
easy to feel a sense of perfection when viewing a
perfectly formed Haiku.
• The term haiku is derived from the first element of the word haikai (a
humorous form of renga, or linked-verse poem) and the second element
of the word hokku (the initial stanza of a renga). The hokku, which set the
tone of a renga, had to mention in its three lines such subjects as the
season, time of day, and the dominant features of the landscape, making it
almost an independent poem. The hokku (often interchangeably called
haikai) became known as the haiku late in the 19th century, when it was
entirely divested of its original function of opening a sequence of verse.
Today the term haiku is used to describe all poems that use the three-line
17-syllable structure, even the earlier hokku.
• Originally, the haiku form was restricted in subject matter to an objective
description of nature suggestive of one of the seasons, evoking a definite,
though unstated, emotional response. The form gained distinction early in
the Tokugawa period (1603–1867) when the great master Bashō elevated
the hokku to a highly refined and conscious art. He began writing what
was considered this “new style” of poetry in the 1670s, while he was in
Edo (now Tokyo). Among his earliest haiku is
C. LIMERICK
The limerick is a humorous poem consisting of
five lines where first , second , and fifth lines ,
must have seven to ten syllables that rhyme
and have the same rhyhtm. The third and the
fourth lines must have five to seven syllables
that should also rhyme with each other and
have the same rhythm.
Example of Limerick Edward Lear
There was an Old Man with a beard
Who said , “It was just as I feared!
Two Olws and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren ,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”
There was a young Lady of Dorking ,
Who bought a large bonnet for walking;
But its colour and size,
So bedazzled her eyes ,
That she very soon went back to Dorking
Hickory , dickory , dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock ran up the clock.
The clock struck one ,
And down he ran , Hickory ,dickory , dock.
D. Villanelle
• This type of poetry is comprised of a fixed
verse of 19 lines which consists of 5 tercets (
first 15 lines) , and a quatrain ( last 4 lines) ,
where the last two lines of which are
considered as a couplet itself. There are no
fixed numbers of syllables , nor a well –
organized meter , but it follows a set of rhyme
scheme of the refrains .The refraining pattern
of a typical villanelle is arranged into:
Line Rhyme Refrain Sample
(“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man “ by James Joyce”
1 A 1 Are you not weary of ardent ways?
2 b Lure of the fallen seraphim?
3 A 2 Tell no more of enchanted days
4 a Your eyes have set man’s heart ablaze
5 b And you have had your will of him.
6 A 1 Are you not weary of ardent ways?
7 a Above the flame the smoke of praise
8 b Goes up from the ocean rim to rim.
9 A 2 Tell no more of enchanted days.
10 a Our broken crises and mournful lays
11 b Raise in one Eucharistic hymn
12 A 1 Are you not weary of ardent ways?
13 a While sacrificing hands uprise
14 b The chalice flowing to the brim
15 A 2 Tell no more of enchanted days.
16 a And still you hold our longing gaze
17 b With languorous look and lavish limb!
18 A 1 Are you not weary of ardent ways?
19 A 2 Tell no more of enchanted days.
E. FREE VERSE
- This poetry is free from imitations of fixed
meters rhythm , and rhyme pattern. A free
verse poetry makes use of normal pauses and
natural rhythmical phrases as compared to the
strict adherence to a particular form of
conventional poetry. Hence , a poet is given
freedom to write in away and style that pleases
him / her and his/her readers. In writing a free
verse poem , the poet utilizes and plays with
what is easily configurable in a poem , that is ,
the backbone of a poem’s structure – its line.
LINE AND BREAKS
A poem is divided into a unit of
language called line. Although the word
for a single poetic line is a verse , they
use interchangeably to signify a poetic
form in general. A line does not strictly
follow the rules of grammatical structure
to differentiate itself from a phrase or
sentence used in fiction; while in stanza
is to a poem as a paragraph is to a story .
Example :
Come Slowly , Eden
Emily Dickinson
Come slowly , Eden
Lips unused to thee
Bashful , sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee ,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars – alights,
And is lost in balms
In the preceding poem by Emily
Dickinson , notice how she ends her
first without any use of punctuation
mark. This is called line break.
It is the point where one ends a line
and begin with another. Line breaks
are important poetic devices as they
offer dynamism and ambiguity ,
provide pauses in reading , and
determine the visual shape of the
poem.
Example
My heart aches , and a drowsy numbness pains ,
My sense , as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drain.
The thou , light – winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green , and shadows numberless ,
Singest of summer in full throated ease.
- “Ode to the Nightingale” (excerpt , 1819) , John
Keats
In this excerpt of Keats’ “ Ode to
the Nightingale ,” line breaks
have been employed to create
artistic effects while lines provide
a slight break which turn
reinforces the disclosure of the
proceeding lines.
ENJAMBMENT
In writing poetry , there are
instances that the line break is
employed at the mid – clause ,
creating enjambment , which can be
defined as a thought in a line of a
poem that does not end the line
break but moves over to the next
line.
Example
April is the cruelest month , breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land , mixing
Memory and desire , stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm , covering
Earth in forgetful snow , feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
-” The Waste Land” (excerpt; 1922) , T.S.Eliot
In writing poetry , enjambment normally
lets an idea carry on beyond the restrictions of
a single line. In doing so , a continued rhythm
becomes even stronger than a permanent line
–end stop , allowing complicated ideas to be
expressed in multiple lines. In this excerpt
from Eliot’s “ The Waste Land, “ notice how
only two lines (4 and 7) are end – stopped
while the rest of the lines are enjambed. Each
line is expanded unexpectedly by
enjambment. Hence , the thought and sense
flow into the next lines.
