Haiku of the Day Theme for June 2026: Sound and Silence in Haiku

In haiku, sound and silence are not opposites but conversation partners, each giving the other meaning. Basho’s frog leaping into an ancient pond is remembered not for the splash alone, but for the stillness it breaks and then restores. In that single sound, a whole universe of quiet becomes audible.

Haiku is finely attuned to the sounds of the world: the scrape of a cricket, rain on a temple roof, the toll of a distant bell. Yet it listens equally for the spaces between. Silence lives in the pause created by the kireji, the cutting word that splits a haiku into two resonant halves, and in the stillness where meaning quietly deepens.
The poems gathered here explore this interplay. Some arrive on sound; others rest in quiet. Together, they invite us to hear more carefully, and in hearing, to become still.

The Haiku of the Day feature displays a new haiku each day at the top of our home page. See also our Haiku of the Day Archive.

– Namratha Varadharajan