The Haiku Foundation Forums

Hi mentors! I posted this haiku at Nahaiwrimo:

first light
the swelling redness
over the rooftops

One of my new FB friends said that I just used assonance in this haiku. Could you please explain more about assonance? Thank you...

josie

Hi mentors! I'm just wondering how you come to understand the haiku of the Japanese masters. Do you know Japanese, or at least some Japanese? I hope you don't think this question is too personal.
I'm forever grateful to you for all the haiku lessons I learned from the forum  :)

Josie

I mentors! I have a question about "images" in haiku. I read a while ago that a haiku has to have two images, but I've read many haiku that I think were good but do not have two images. I'm a little confused  ???

Josie

Hi all! I have another question. I read that a haiku is better if it has  a kigo than one without a kigo. But if it's about people or about a thing, should they have a kigo?

I have an example here:

shooting star
another wish
not said

The story of this haiku: I was driving on the highway when I saw a shooting star. It happened so fast so I did not have time to make a wish. I have another version of this:

shooting star...
I wish I have enough time
to make a wish

Have a wonderful day!

Josie

Hi everyone! I would like to ask this question to the mentors and haiku experts: When you were starting to write haiku, did you have a period in your life as a haiku writer that you get frustrated?

I ask this question because I'm very new to haiku. At first I thought that haiku is so simple. What can be hard about a short, 3 line poem with 17 syllables (at the most)? The more I study about haiku, the more I find it more complicated. I find haiku a lot more difficult than free-verse poetry but still I like it.

I want to thank you, mentors, for all the help you offered to me and to all the amateur writers. You've been of great service to us. Blessings to you all!

Josie

Hi! I have a question about writing numbers in haiku. What is the right way to do it? Is it okay to just write the number symbol or should the number word be spelled out? I have here an example of a haiku that I wrote last summer:

93*—
tree by the riverbank
diving position

or

ninety-three degrees—
tree by the riverbank
diving position

In the first haiku, I used the * symbol because I don't know how to do the "degree" symbol. By the way, I don't have a name for the tree because I was driving on the highway, and this happened so fast I could not recognize what kind of tree that was. All I saw was that this particular tree was like a diver posing or getting ready to dive in the water. And it was so hot that day.

Josie

Hi! I have a question about my edited haiku. A friend of mine who is a published haiku writer edited a bunch of my haiku and he would like me to send them to a magazine that publish haiku for possible publications. Can I send his versions and claim them as mine? Is this kind of cheating? I would appreciate some answers. Thank you very much.

Hi! I visit a few haiku groups regularly. I'm not an expert, but I can tell that a lot of the postings are not haiku. I feel bored. Lately, there has been so many indecent haiku postings and some of them are sickening. What are the rules about indecent haiku, or is there such a thing as indecent haiku?

Josie

Hi! Will you please tell me the difference between a haiku and a senryu. Are all senryu suppose to be humurous and about people? I have written haiku inspired by people that have a serious topic. I get confuse if they should be in the haiku or senryu category. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Josie

Hi! I'm very new to haiku. I always have trouble about punctuation marks. I notice that people use comma, dashes, and ellipsis the most. I know when to use them in a sentence but with haiku, I get confused especially with dashes and ellipsis. I have a couple of haiku examples here. The 1st one I used ellipsis; the 2nd one I used dashes. I wonder if I did it right and I wonder if I should just leave them without any punctuation. (You may also make suggestions about the haiku. :))

clay jar...
I remember
my first broken heart

a chilly day--
only the wind
in the swing set