The Haiku Foundation Forums

plum seeds
a few kids brandish
their slingshots
           ~Don

twilight party
Elvis brandishes
a Memphis Slingshot

            ~Alan

slingshot stone flying
to Goliath's left temple
crashing to the ground
              onecloud

I was introduced to haiku by my 7th grade teacher in 1966,
I began to use the form to reduce my journals in the 70's,
by the 80's I was exercising the form to illuminate my paintings,
during the 90's I supposed that exercising the form had informed my thinking about my experience,
now I discover that haiku is an unending fount of ideas and information for me
into the new year
I look forward to haiku
teaching me wonder

cheeks flushed -
a child's sled flies
down the hill
                 ~ Gael

hillwalking...
heather always
one step ahead
                     ~col
     
ahead of us shines
january's crescent moon
above the tree tops
                   onecloud

i 
like the
symmetry
and innovation
solstice night
was cold
bright
 

Don,
yes, and thank you,

The first american haiku poet I read is Gary Snyder.

chibi,
perfect is perfect...
I didn't have a teacher to correct my form.

I consider this topic a non-debate.  Who should name poetry if not poets?  and "what's in a name?" 
oh rose!

for myself... the new word I am hearing is "mico poems"  it is fitting,  modern, digital,.....

I have practiced writing haiku in english for thirty yrs.  The form appealed to me. I wrote one in japanese.  I found that what is valuable to me is that practicing the form trained my poetic mind in a way that improves my art.  call my poems what you like.   

Interior surprise may be one of the most delightfull aspects of a haiku. I do not believe it is the most important. I do not like to compare poetry, yet I hold myself to a form that pleases me. The visual experience is the most pleasing to me. The more forms a poem fits, the more "bravo!"

if I write a haiku that told the time of day and the season, and the time of my life, .. and invited the reader to visualize a place and suprise them with a revelation about what they witnessed, ... then I would say it is my best.

if it also was 17 syables and had internal line rhyme,  I would enjoy it more.

On rules... I believe that any rule applied to english haiku is abitrary.
haiku is a modern english form that celabrates time, and place, and event.

I also believe haiku is about being.