June 6, 2010

Haiku: A Syllable Dilemma

Warm Saturday night
Neighbors party raucously --
I work quietly.

This is my first attempt at writing a Haiku, a traditional Japanese poetry form. As I have often said, I can’t rhyme to save my life. So here is an alternate form of poetry for people like me. YAY!

So how does a Haiku work, you ask. Oh well, it is a three line poem, which is usually divided in two parts using a colon or a dash. While both sections must enrich the other, they should be independent of each other. Usually, each Haiku contains a season word as cherry blossoms indicate spring, snow indicate winter, and mosquitoes indicate summer. 

That’s the easy part.

The difficult part is that each line of Haiku has to have certain number of syllables. So instead of rhyming, it’s syllable counting. The total number of syllables in a Haiku must be 17. The first line of the Haiku should have 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables, and the third line 5 syllables.

So what do you think? Any Haiku expert out there? Or, a syllable expert?

P.S.: I used a syllable counter for this one. Not that I don’t know how to count syllables. It’s just that English is a funny language, and my second language. So I would like to be extra sure.


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5 responses:

Titaxy said...

:) Nice! I like!

I use the syllable counter too, whenever I write Haiku.

Broom said...

Haikus are lovely
And once you start writing them
You just cannot stop!

I LOVE HAIKUS! My girlfriend taught me how to write them, so they're extra special. We often write love letters to each other in the form of haikus.

Richa said...

Thanks!

They are useful, aren't they? I mean the syllable counter. Which one do you use?

Richa said...

Wow!! You are an expert!

That sounds so romantic. You guys rock!

Titaxy said...

I use wordcalc.com

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