The Haiku Foundation Forums

What is haiku other than 5/7/5 guidelines or 17 syllables or less?  What exactly is a haiku, plural haiku is haiku.  Every word processor underlines haikus as a misspelling and at the same time many seem to ignore the misspelling and post it anyway.

If one is to take the word haiku a part into syllables===  hai-ku what would each individual part mean?

I've often seen this comment when a person comments on a haiku entry- I like this ku.

Now what one would think by such a comment is either ku is short for haiku or ku is one entry into a person's haiku, the person has written in there life time.

If we pick a Master to read their haiku, we read their entire journey and what we read is their haiku, their life's journey from first ku to the end of their haiku.

When I write my haiku I number them with first lines marked like this ( ) in brackets.

Haiku #252 (hurricane)

hurricane
bangs the house
whoooooooooooo

by James W, McRight Jr.


Haiku #251 (spider)


spider crawls up instructor's leg squished haiku

by James W. McRight Jr.


So is ku one entry of a haiku?   

I have not seen guidelines for one line haiku, I have an idea how one line haiku should be written and I am sure there will be those that disagree.  I am not interested in guidelines for advanced haiku poets, I am interest in guidelines for the beginner who is taking baby steps, just to get them started. One searches the internet for guidelines for one line haiku and very little is found.  I am the led of a group of haiku poets, we are all students of the art. We have been having a discussion on this subject and everyone has their own opinions but just what are the guidelines for one line haiku?

To me in one line haiku, one needs to adopt some of the guidelines and rules of a three line haiku.  We all know that a three line haiku can have 17 syllables or less, 12 syllables or less for the phrase and 5 syllables or less for the fragment.  To me any three line haiku can be converted into a one line haiku, because of the break pattern in the structure of haiku.  Therefore why the one line haiku in the first, other than they are pretty or the poets preference for formatting the haiku at the moment. 

One question for me, the three line haiku allows for syllable count 12 or less for a phrase and 5 syllables or less for a fragment, should this be followed in a one line haiku? I feel that one needs to keep a fragment to the size of a fragment and a fragment should never be longer than the phrase.

Best wishes...  BWP...  James...