Traditional and modern Haiku poems

Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry that dates back to the 19th century. Today modern haiku is very often written based on the the form and the ideas behind the traditional Japanese haiku.

The metrical pattern and the theme of the tradtional and the modern haiku

The metrical pattern of the traditional haiku poems consists of 5, 7 and 5 syllables in three units. It can sometimes be difficult to follow this rule strictly in English, but modern Haiku poems in Englsih keep to this rule more or less strictly. Below you find a modern haiku poem in English which consists of 4, 7 and 4 syllables in three units.

Loneliness

No sky at all;
no earth at all - and still
the snowflakes fall....

Shiki

Most haiku poem deal with subjects from daily life in a way that gives the reader a new experience of a well-known theme or situation. The haiku poem above deals with the theme of loneliness and in a paraphrase we can say that it deals with the fact that although people may have no strong personal relationships to neither people in their past nor people who are around them in the present, still they are able to go on with their lives.

We may say that the theme of loneliness is a theme from daily life, as a lot of people experience isolation and the lack of strong human relationships in our postmodern society.

The technique of two sections in the traditional and the modern haiku
The traditional Haiku divides the poem into two parts or sections. The two sections remain to a certain degree independent of each other, but most sections must enrich the understanding of the other. In order to divide the poem into two parts, either the first or the second part normally ends with a colon, a long dash or an ellipsis.

When you write a Haiku poem in a glogster, try to follow the ideas and the form behind the traditional Haiku poem, although you may divert a little form the strict form and rules.