A Great Lesson in Haiku

Here is an excellent ten-minute introduction to writing haiku. You will learn all you need to know to appreciate haiku and to try your hand at writing it. Here is the statement from the YouTube notes:

Learn how to write a traditional haiku, including the 5-7-5 rule, subject matter, and structure. Learn what a "kigo" is and why your poem must contain a shift or movement of some kind. Learn also what you should do when you disagree with the dictionary about how many syllables a word contains.

Writing haiku is a great learning activity for kids, but it's also an adult poetic form written by and for adults. And it's fundamentally different from Western poetry in that it doesn't attempt to contain any sort of narrative thread or train of thought. Haiku is about capturing a single moment and allowing the reader to see what you see, feel what you feel, and to suddenly understand what you, the poet, understand. For the reader, it isn't like talking to the poet; it's more like inhabiting the poet's mind for a single transcendent moment. It's a bit like magic.

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