I Don't Need No Rhyme

To Make Haiku Poetry, Just Proper Structure

Hi, it’s your mid-week snack break. 

Today’s snack is my favorite 17 syllable treat: haiku. It’s only a few small bites, but it packs a big punch and can hold any amount of sweet or spice you can stuff in three lines. 

I know you’re probably still a little freaked out by the idea I posed on Sunday of trying your hand at something creative every day. Haikus are an easy way to start. 

I undertook writing a haiku a day for a month. I mostly made it. I dedicated the tiniest journal for the endeavor and found a few minutes every evening to drop five syllables, then seven, and another five. Just a few quick lines about my day. By the final week, I’d misplaced my journal and scratched the last few days effort on some junk mail, which I promptly lost. Some of my faves are today’s illustrations.

Seriously it takes only a wee bit of practice, but you can cram an awful lot of information into a small poem. For example, the story I’d like to capture for the day involves my clearing the dinner table and discovering I still had a slice of cucumber on my plate. I popped it in my mouth as I shuttled the dishes to the sink. As soon as my mouth closed around it, I knew something wasn’t right. The texture was wrong—not crispy, sort of, almost, well, pre-chewed. That’s when it occurred to me that during dinner, husband gave begging dog a slice of cucumber. Dog chewed it for a minute, spat it out then pushed it around the floor for a few more minutes. What I didn’t see was husband pick cucumber off the floor and place it on my empty plate after we finished eating to scrape down the sink.

That's an awful lot of words. I can significantly condense the whole story into three lines of poetry. A first line of five syllables, a second line of seven syllables, and a third line of five syllables. Beautiful, concise, to the point. 

Popped cuke in my mouth.

It went mush instead of crunch

Cuz dog chewed it first.

Now you try it…

(Don’t forget to share your results with us.)