Feed your soul in 10 words or fewer: why you need haiku in your life

Tuesday, August 12, 2025 ⚓

#blaugust2025 #haiku

If you're anything like me a month ago, "haiku" is a form of poetry that comes from Japan, but is only really good for teaching kids about syllables and making memes. My perception completely changed when a friend told me he was really into haiku (indeed, he co-edits an online haiku publication). I was curious enough to start reading, and reading about, contemporary English-language haiku (henceforth just called haiku). I was hooked. This accessible form, both to read and write, offers a form of mindfulness and a break from our tech-mediated ways of seeing the world.

But first, what is haiku? The first myth to debunk is that haiku does not follow the 5-7-5 syllable rule you learned in school. Traditional Japanese haiku follows a metric structure based around 5-7-5, but a) the metric units are not syllables and b) they translate very poorly into English because Japanese words tend to have many more of these metric units than English does syllables. In fact, in English-language haiku, there are no rules about the metric structure other than the obvious fact that they are short, maybe averaging 12 syllables.

So if not the syllables, what are we left with? A haiku is a short poem, in the present tense, that describes a (real or imagined) emotive or aesthetic moment, but leaves it to the reader to interpret the emotions or aesthetics. A haiku will never tell you that something is "beautiful" — you have to find that for yourself.

In terms of structure, they usually have three lines, but some are just one "run-on" line (two- and four-line examples are rare). Nearly always, the poem presents two images, but the connection between them is left incomplete, absent, or ambiguous. Are the images chosen because they are similar or because they contrast? Is one a metaphor for the other? The reader is invited to reflect on the images, as well as to draw the connection between them, thus having their own "moment" that mirrors the author's.

Traditionally, the poem contains a reference to nature, especially a seasonal image — a callback to the traditional Japanese form, which has a rich language of seasonal associations that English doesn't really have. Depending who you ask, English haiku don't necessarily have a nature/season reference, although they very often do.

Let's look at some examples I enjoy.

meteor shower...
a gentle wave
wets our sandals

~ Michael Dylan Welch

This is one of my favourite haiku. As we look up to the meteor shower in awe, the sensory experience of a gentle wave at our feet roots us firmly to the ground. Note that line 2 can also be read as pertaining to the meteor shower, which may seem gentle from a safe distance on Earth (this line 2 ambiguity is a common feature of haiku). As well as feeling the coolness of the wave, the water adds a soft aural detail, which may differ depending on whether we imagine this wave to originate in an ocean, river, or lake. The use of "our" rather than simply "my" turns this experience into a shared intimate moment. Living inland, I wouldn't be wearing sandals by water unless I was on holiday, so it feels like I must have travelled especially for this meteor shower.

warm rain before dawn:
my milk flows into her
unseen

~ Ruth Yarrow

I find much of Yarrow's work enchanting. The warm rain and warm milk — note that use of two images again — are juxtaposed for their gentle life-giving natures, and the final line "unseen" could apply to either. This poem perfectly captures the quiet loneliness of a night feed.

reading a moth from the darkness

~ Alan Peat

The initial reading of this "monoku" is slightly disorienting and surreal. We find ourselves in the dark, "reading" a moth, presumably flitting about some light source. What is meant by "reading" here? Then, another reading of the poem reveals itself — an imaginary line break after "reading". Suddenly, our positions our switched; we are in the light, the moth outside it at first. For me, the scene is now imbued with tranquility. I'm reading by some light in the dark, the silence broken by the faintest fluttering of moth wings. Many haiku, especially the one-line variety, use this device of prompting an initial "misreading" to take the reader on a journey. I enjoy the way this poem plays with light and dark in just 6 words

crayon map
my son shows me the way
to Neverland

~ John McManus

I find this touching, especially as a father of two boys. Neverland, of course, the land where one never grows up, turns this exchange between father and son into a transformation of the father's soul — which parenthood does, over, and over again.

As these poems are so short, you can easily read one during a minute of downtime. Even better, when you notice an emotive moment, write down two fragments of images and thus draft your own haiku. Soon you'll develop an eye for "haiku moments", a more mindful way to experience the world. Walking in the meadow by my house inspired the following draft:

ancient oak
overhead, the chirping
of power lines

It's not finished yet. I don't want that comma, and am looking for a better way to say "overhead". Can I introduce some imagery to give a sense of time as well as place? Something like

old oak at dawn
the air fills with the chirping
of power lines

Maybe, maybe not. The rhythm is a bit clunky now. Polishing a haiku into something publishable takes skill and work. But writing down an initial draft, the kernel of an idea, was easy enough, and brought me into awareness of the world around me. A pocket notebook or the notes app on your phone does the trick, but I prefer the notebook option as to me, haiku is an alternative to whipping out your phone during a moment of quiet. I think of it like taking a photograph in words.

Finished haiku can of course be shared. You could post on your own site, or submit to a haiku publication — most are open to novices as well as experts.

theTangentSpace

Feed your soul in 10 words or fewer: why you need haiku in your life

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