'Hello' is followed
By gibberish. Then 'Thank You'.
Public speaking pains.
Guarded by evil,
Sauron's realm was unrivaled.
Two hobbits slipped by.
History of Haiku
(Post 1)
Ask anyone to tell you one think they know about haiku and they’ll probably tell you:
“It’s a poem written in 3 lines and 17 syllables
5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second line, and 5 in the third line” (“575Haiku”)
~
But unfortunately this:
1/ Hasn’t actually been true for most of the time people have been writing English language haiku
2/ Isn’t true for most people who write haiku in English today, and publish them in Journals dedicated to haiku, such as Frogpond, Modern Haiku (and many others)
3/ Is based on an almost complete misunderstanding of what Japanese haiku poems are like
~
So, how did #575Haiku become so fixed in minds of so many people?
Probably because most people first learn about haiku from a teacher at school, and many teachers think of haiku as just “a great way to teach kids about counting syllables”, and (maybe?) not much more
~
Over the next few days I’ll write some more posts that expand on these ideas a little further
And hopefully show that while haiku can be the simple fun poems we often see posted under the #575prompts tag
Haiku can also be
a
whole
lot
more
#Haiku #FreeHaiku #Poetry #17Syllables #HistoryOfHaiku @freehaiku
#575haiku #575prompts #haiku #freehaiku #poetry #17syllables #historyofhaiku
@k8 @aethelshane Hi @aethelshane, This is a query as I'm unsure if I'm doing it wrong. I've put in two #575prompts yesterday & today but they're not appearing. It's maybe that they're too poor to publish...but just wanted to ask if you received them ok. Many thanks