A while ago @consciouscat and @mell79 asked me some questions about haiku. It's taken me awhile to get around to writing about the format, but let's dive in and look at the short poem a little.
So what is a haiku?
Most of you probably have some ideas. Most of your ideas probably include one of the following (or both!):
- a short poem about nature
- a 17 syllable poem broken up into 3 lines of 5-7-5
For this post, let's address that second one.
Seventeen syllables
In Japanese, a haiku is seventeen morae. Without going too much into linguistics, just understand that a morae is a sound unit similar but not entirely equal to a syllable. It can be equal to a syllable, but is usually shorter. (But if you crave detail, Wikipedia can give an overview.)
Rather than go into great and perhaps confusing detail explaining what that difference is, let's look at some examples to illustrate the difference:
Example 1:
- In English Tokyo is three syllables. Toe-key-oh. Some people may try to glide the kyo as the Japanese do, making it only two syllables.
- In Japanese, however, it's four morae. To-u-kyo-u. In practice the two u sounds are combined with the proceeding o making that oh sound double length. It may be the same sound, but double-length sounds are counted as two morae.
Example 2:
In Japanese, Mt Fuji is *Fujisan". This is somewhat common knowledge, so many of you know it.
- In English Fujisan would be three syllables. Fu-ji-san
- In Japanese, it's four morae. Fu-ji-sa-n The nasal n/m is also considered a separate morae.
As you can see, while syllables and morae are similar, they are also different enough to make it incorrect to say haiku are seventeen syllables.
Now you could say that it's an interesting distinction, but in English they are seventeen syllables. Well, that brings me to the next point.
Haiku in Japanese are very very very short
As we saw above, Japanese words tend to take more morae than English words do. As a result, haiku in Japanese are really short. You think haiku in English are short? Compared to Japanese haiku, English haiku are long and wordy.
Lets look at a very famous haiku from Issa. I've written about this a few times, so you may have seen it before.
蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山
Katatsumuri / sorosoro nobore / Fuji no yama
Literally it says:
snail / slow climb / Fuji mountain
That's it!
If we padded this out to a full seventeen syllables in English, as some translators try to do, we might say something like:
the slow tiny snail
climbs up little by little
the great mount fuji
Compared to the Japanese haiku, this is bloated and ugly, telling us all kinds of things we don't need to know.
Now I'm not making a value judgement here. In English poetry a tendency to be wordy is not necessarily bad and can even sound nice. As a result, if you like a more wordy haiku, that's fine, and we'll get to that, but I am saying when we compare it to the Japanese haiku philosophy, a full seventeen English syllables is too long.
In Japanese it is said that a haiku should be one breath. Using seventeen syllables in English, however, each line becomes one breath—maybe even more for the middle line. Way too long!
Seventeen syllables is too long
Some haiku translators and poets say we should instead make the English haiku eleven syllables long. That is, three lines of 3-5-3 instead of 5-7-5. This would better match the briefness of the Japanese haiku. Some English haiku poets have embraced this idea and they use it to great effect. I usually suggest that if people do want the structure of a specific syllable count, they should try 3-5-3.
But there are some problems with sticking to a syllable count in English. The Japanese language itself naturally flows in groups of five and seven. English does not. There is a reason Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter and not in patterns of 5-7-5. The language itself dictates the form of poetry, and 5-7-5 (or 3-5-3) is a poor fit for English.
Jack Kerouac addressed this matter. The Beats were all very fond of haiku, but none more than Kerouac. He wrote hundreds in his lifetime and was quite passionate about them. About them, he wrote:
The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don't think American Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry about syllables because American speech is something again...bursting to pop.
Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella.
"Simple and free of all poetic trickery". I think he really hit the nail on its head there. Of all Kerouac's haiku, almost none of them use a hard syllable count of seventeen syllables. Most quite short, like this one:
No telegram today
only more leaves
fell.
or this one:
Missing a kick
at the icebox door
It closed anyway.
I agree with him. Haiku in English should just be short verses. No need to pay attention to syllables, just make it short. Aim for one breath or close to it.
The English Haiku
Reading the above you may get the idea that I think using seventeen syllables for haiku in English is wrong and it should be much shorter. I do—but I also don't. Let me explain.
As Kerouac said the American haiku is not the same as the Japanese haiku. They are different things. English and Japanese are very different languages and the small verse just doesn't really translate all that well.
So it depends on you. Are you trying to capture the feeling of a Japanese haiku? If so, make it as short as you can. Also use a word referring to the current season if possible: even free-form haiku in Japan today that completely disregard morae count still often have some reference to nature (but not always; I'll cover season words in another post).
evening
snow coming down
my son is snoring
(My own, written on a winter night long ago when my son was just two or three)
If that is just too short for you, and you want to stick to the seventeen syllables you learned in grade school, go for it. I have nothing against that form. It can be a nice creative exercise. Just be aware that you have many options in your haiku writing.
The takeaway I want to give to this short article is that haiku should be short. I'll cover it in another article, but nature words are optional. Use them if you like, but don't worry if you don't. If you do want some structure, then try a 3-5-3 count. (or maybe 4-6-4 as a middle ground).
In my next essay on haiku I'll try to get into season words and some of the other structure you have heard of, like "cutting words". Anyway, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.
Misc
- Title graphic by Virvoreanu Laurentiu from Pixabay
- Morning Dew is a symbol of the transience of life in traditional Japanese thought, something haiku always seeks to capture, making it a great symbol of the short poems.
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
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