Haiku Poems: What a Haiku Is and Where It Came From

Haiku poems are short Japanese poems that capture a single moment, usually in nature, and hint at the season. In Japanese they have 17 sound units in a 5-7-5 pattern; in English they are written in three lines, often of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Haiku grew out of the opening verse of linked poems in 17th-century Japan, and the poet Masaoka Shiki gave them the name "haiku" at the end of the 19th century.

This page covers what a haiku is, where it came from and four classic examples from the Japanese masters.

Want to write your own? Our step-by-step guide shows you how to write a haiku, with the 5-7-5 rule, a worked example and a plan for the classroom.

Definition of a haiku poem

A haiku is a very short poem that shows one moment through clear images, usually from nature, and ties it to a season. It doesn't rhyme, it usually has no title, and it rarely explains itself. The reader fills in the feeling.

In Japanese, a haiku has 17 on, or sound units, in three phrases of 5, 7 and 5, and it is usually written as a single line. In English, haiku are set out in three lines, and the 5-7-5 pattern is taught as syllables.

An on is shorter than most English syllables, so a 17-syllable English haiku holds more than a Japanese one does. In 1973 the Haiku Society of America noted that about 12 English syllables come close to the length of 17 Japanese on, and many English-language poets now write haiku shorter than 5-7-5. The society's current definitions of haiku and senryu don't set a syllable count at all.

Here is a quick summary of a haiku poem:

• Three short lines in English, one line in Japanese
• 17 sound units (5-7-5) in Japanese; 5-7-5 syllables or fewer in English
• One moment, shown through images
• A season word (kigo) and a cut (kireji)
• First written in 17th-century Japan

What makes a haiku: kigo and kireji

A kigo is a season word that tells the reader the time of year without naming it: "blossoms" for spring, "cicada" for summer, "dew" or "colored leaves" for autumn and "snow" for winter. Japanese poets collect them in season-word books called saijiki.

A kireji is a cutting word, such as ya or kana, that divides the poem into two parts and makes the reader pause. The cut sets two images side by side so that each one sheds light on the other. In English, poets usually make the cut with a dash or a line break.

What about senryu? A senryu has the same short shape as a haiku, but it is a separate genre. It is about people and human nature, often with humor, and it usually has no season word or cutting word. It is named after the Edo-period poet Karai Senryu (1718–1790). A short poem that skips the haiku rules doesn't automatically become a senryu: it's the focus on people that makes one. You can compare the two, along with tanka, haibun and haiga, in our guide to types of haiku.

The history of haiku

From renga to hokku

For centuries, Japanese poets wrote renga together. These were long linked poems in which stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7 sound units took turns, each one linking to the one before. The opening stanza, called the hokku, set the season and the scene. In the Edo period, the most popular form was the kasen, a chain of 36 verses.

In the 1600s, a lighter and more everyday style of linked verse called haikai became popular, and its opening verses began to be read and admired as poems in their own right. Those stand-alone hokku are what we now call haiku.

The poets who shaped haiku

• Matsuo Basho (1644–1694) turned haikai into serious art and is often called the father of haiku. His travel journal Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) came out of a long journey he began in 1689. He himself preferred writing linked verse to writing single hokku.
• Yosa Buson (1716–1784) was a painter as well as a poet. His haiku are known for vivid, picture-like scenes, and he was a master of haiga, paintings that combine a picture with a haiku.
• Kobayashi Issa (1763–1828) wrote warm, often funny haiku about small creatures and the hardships of ordinary life.
• Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) began a movement to reform haiku in 1893. He treated the verse as a poem on its own rather than part of a linked chain, and he gave it the name "haiku".

How haiku reached the West

Early Western scholars such as Basil Hall Chamberlain and William George Aston translated hokku but thought little of them as poetry. The Japanese poet Yone Noguchi urged Americans to try the form in "A Proposal to American Poets" in 1904. Ezra Pound's two-line "In a Station of the Metro", printed in Poetry magazine in April 1913, showed what a haiku-style image could do in English. Over the 20th century, haiku spread into classrooms, magazines and poetry societies around the world.

Examples of haiku poems from four classic poets

Each example shows the Japanese original, its sounds in romaji (Japanese written in our alphabet) and our own literal translation. The Japanese poems are in the public domain; the translations are the site's own. For 19 more, with meanings, see our haiku examples.

Matsuo Basho: "Gathering the rains"

五月雨をあつめて早し最上川

samidare o
atsumete hayashi
Mogamigawa

Our translation:

gathering the rains
of early summer, how fast
the Mogami River

Basho wrote this at Oishida, on the Mogami River, during his 1689 journey. Samidare, the long rains of early summer, is the season word. All that rain has poured into one river, and the poem rushes along with it.

Yosa Buson: "The moon at its height"

月天心貧しき町を通りけり

tsuki tenshin
mazushiki machi o
tōrikeri

Our translation:

the moon at its height —
passing through
a poor town

The Japanese leaves it open whether the moon or the poet is passing through the poor streets. Either way, the same moonlight falls on the poor houses as on any palace. It's a good example of how much a haiku can leave to the reader.

Kobayashi Issa: "This world of dew"

露の世は露の世ながらさりながら

tsuyu no yo wa
tsuyu no yo nagara
sari nagara

Our translation:

this world of dew
is a world of dew, I know,
and yet, and yet

Issa wrote this in 1819, after his young daughter Sato died of smallpox. Dew is an autumn season word and an old image of how briefly life lasts. Issa accepts that, and then the last line refuses to let go. The cut is in the turn to "and yet".

Masaoka Shiki: "I bite a persimmon"

柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺

kaki kueba
kane ga naru nari
Hōryūji

Our translation:

I bite a persimmon,
and a bell rings out
from Horyuji

The persimmon is an autumn fruit, and Horyuji is one of Japan's oldest temples, in Nara. Shiki puts a simple everyday act, eating a piece of fruit, next to the deep sound of an ancient temple bell. It is his best-known haiku.

Try the free haiku generator

Conclusion

Haiku poems began as the opening verse of Japanese linked poetry, grew into an art form with Basho, Buson and Issa, and got their modern name from Shiki. Today they are written all over the world, in 5-7-5 or in fewer syllables, but the heart of the form hasn't changed: one moment, a hint of the season and a cut between two images.

If you like haiku, try the older five-line form in our guide to tanka poems, or browse other types of poems. And when you're ready to write, the haiku generator can turn a word or a season into a first draft for you to rework.

FAQs

Who is the father of haiku?

Matsuo Basho (1644–1694) is generally regarded as the father of haiku. Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) gave the form its modern name.

What is a haiku in simple words?

A haiku is a three-line poem, often 5, 7 and 5 syllables, that shows one small moment, usually in nature, with a hint of the season.

What is a famous haiku example?

Basho's frog poem from 1686: furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto. In our literal translation: "an old pond — / a frog jumps in, / the sound of water".

What is the difference between a hokku and a haiku?

A hokku was the opening verse of a linked poem written by a group of poets. A haiku is the same kind of verse standing alone as a complete poem, a change that Masaoka Shiki made official in the late 1800s.