Japanese Poetry forms: Haiku
@innertalks (21957)
Australia
October 6, 2016 12:33am CST
Haiku: Passing Clouds
Clouds never rest long,
yet they provide distant calm,
to my aching eyes.
Haiku: Passing Clouds
Clouds never rest long,
yet they provide distant rest,
to my watching eyes.
A Haiku is a short poem with a certain syllable count per line. It is said to have Japanese origins. It consists of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five again in the third.
They usually contain some nature reference within them.
I like trying my hand at composing them. The above is one, or two, of my efforts.
Which is better?
They are rather subtle poems where various shades of meaning can come out from using slightly differing words.
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4 responses
@EllaSpringtime (198)
• Israel
10 Oct 16
Both of them are good. I have started learning Japanese lately and I know already hundreds of words and I can read in hiragana. I hope I could read and understand haikus in Japanese soon.
2 people like this
@innertalks (21957)
• Australia
10 Oct 16
That would be great if you could get to that level of understanding because the great Japanese Haiku rendered into English, usually have lost something special from them.
I have heard it said that the structure of English and Japanese syllables are very different.
Japanese has morae, English has syllables. Japanese does not usually stress their morae. English syllables often do carry some syllable stress.
2 people like this
@innertalks (21957)
• Australia
6 Oct 16
This type of Japanese poetry doesn't normally contain rhymes within them. There are other forms of Japanese poetry too.
I think generally though this type of three line poetry is just called a three line poem. There are web sites dedicated to this type of poetry.
Here's one:
Welcome to Three Line Poetry! Three Line Poetry is a Prolific Press publication dedicated to showcasing and celebrating three line poems and poets. We invite you to read through our website to learn more about composing three line poems. Part of our missio
1 person likes this
@innertalks (21957)
• Australia
6 Oct 16
Yes, I agree.
The first one was my final rendering of the poem, but as an afterthought, I thought that I would include the earlier version, my first attempt here, as it's an earlier version of my poem too.
I put my final version first above in my discussion.
I was going to use the word watchful, rather than watching too, couldn't make up my mind, so I went for aching instead ..LOL...
Clouds never rest long,
yet they provide distant rest,
for my watchful eyes.
1 person likes this
