🍂 I love this time of year, don't you? Gorgeous fall leaves, cosy sweater weather, and endless cups of spicy tea and hot chocolate...and don't forget a good scare! But for us haiku poets, there's one fear that never goes away:
"Actually,
that's not a real haiku."
Ugh, poetry trolls. Is there anything worse? Just the thought of having someone publicly judge whether a haiku "passes" or not is enough to get us apologizing for syllable counting mistakes, calling our haiku "micro poetry," or saying a published poetry collection was "inspired by poets such as Bashō and Issa." (I would never.)
Haiku poets almost always start out with the idea that haiku are—by definition—seventeen syllables. Some change their minds, some don't, but let me assure you the answer is yes...and no. The problem? It depends who you ask. When I started getting serious about haiku several years ago, I did a lot of reading. What quickly became clear was that people like to make definitive statements about what haiku is. A lot. And they often say vastly different things. They mention inscrutable concepts with Japanese names, make claims about poets and poetry from cultures that are not their own, and represent guidelines and ideals as rules and facts. And even when a distinction is made between Japanese haiku and haiku-in-English (as I would argue is a necessity), it's still hard to find common ground.
So, what is a humble haijin to do?
First, decide what matters to you. What do you love about writing haiku? Is it the challenge of keeping your vision to a 5-7-5 form? Is it bringing a fresh perspective to a common experience? Is it connecting seemingly disparate ideas into a thought-provoking whole? Or maybe you like tossing out a pointed bit of wit with a political edge? Whatever it is, it's valid—I promise. Feel free to send any and all trolls packing.
Next, try something new! Without letting go of what you enjoy, play around with one of the other elements a haiku can have. For example,
present tense
no "I" or author
a cutting word
a seasonal word
juxtaposition of two images
two phrases (not written as one sentence)
a nature theme
less than 19 syllables, in any number of lines
describe a moment just as it is
nothing metaphorical
no rhyming
a play on words
5-7-5 syllables in three lines (if it's not what you usually do)
one line (or even two lines!)
Why? Because you might like it! You might write your best haiku yet. You might surprise yourself and impress your poetry community. Or, just as good: none of that. Honestly, you don't need me to tell you doing something different can be good for its own sake. But you do need me to tell you more about #OneLineOctober. (Maybe not my most elegant transition, but I had to get to it eventually. It's right there in the title of the post!)
#OneLineOctober is a yearly event meant to encourage haiku poets in our community to give writing monoku (one-line haiku) a shot. I think it's worth it for all the same reasons I gave above, even though in some cases you might have to temporarily part with what you like best about haiku in order to try it.
What a monoku is though, is probably best explained with examples.
an icicle the moon drifting through it
-Matsuo Allard
the river the river makes of the moon
-Jim Kacian
pig and I spring rain
-Marlene Mountain
Before we knew its name the indigo bunting
-Peggy Willis Lyles
leaves blowing into a sentence
-Robert Boldman
So, it's a single line poem that usually has an "audible break" so it doesn't sound like a sentence (but not always)? Or, it's two or more images kinda smushed together to create some kind of meaning, or evoke an emotion? Maybe it's just a regular haiku without line breaks?? Who knows! Seems like it can be any of those things, and more. I think it's that flexibility that makes monoku special.
If you're intrigued, I highly recommend you check out Whiptail Journal , but you'll find stellar monoku in pretty much any publication these days. And if you're up for it, I really hope you'll join in #OneLineOctober and conjure some wicked monoku of your own. They're a widely accepted and totally legit form of haiku...so what are you afraid of? 😉
~ anne