Think You Know What Haiku Is? The Secret Truth Might Surprise You!

What is haiku?

If you’re like most of us in the West, you probably think haiku is a form of Japanese poetry where the first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7, and the last line has 5 again.

You know:

Haikus are easy
but sometimes they don’t make sense.
Refrigerator.

That.

And guess what!

You’re (kinda, sorta, almost) right! Huzzah!

…but if you’re anything like me, “kinda, sorta, almost” right is not right enough. We want to be correct. The best kind of correct:

Technically Correct^tm

So grab a cup of tea and settle in. In celebration of National Haiku Day on April 17, we’re busting haiku myths and doing a deep dive into the truth about the haiku format. When we’re done, you’ll not only be able to brag to your friends that you know the real haiku rules, you’ll also understand what makes these short Japanese poems so special (hint: it’s more than just counting!)

Sound good?

Let’s go!

So What is a Haiku, Really?

First, let’s talk about the parts we got right:

Haiku really are Japanese poems. And they do follow a 5-7-5 pattern.

So where did we go wrong?

To answer that question, we’re going to need to understand some things about the Japanese language. First and foremost:

Japanese Is Not English.

Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re thinking.

…duh.

You (with good reason!)

But this super-obvious-sounding statement is really the crux of the matter. This is the key to understanding why most of what Americans and other Westerners think we know about haiku is only mostly right.

To get to that nirvana state of Technically Correct^tm, we’ll first need to understand how the building blocks of the Japanese language differ from the blocks us English speakers are working with.

(Already comfortable with Japanese linguistics? Know syllabics vs. alphabetics like the back of your hand? Click to skip straight to the poetry part.)

You’re already familiar with the building blocks of English.

If you grew up in my family, you played with them as literal building blocks as a baby.

But even if you weren’t a teacher’s kid, surrounded by all things literacy and learning at all times, you’re still using them to read this sentence:

Yup. That’s right.

English is made up of letters.

Shocking revelation, I know. Feel free to leave a donation with one of the unicorns holding a collection basket on the way out if I just restored order and meaning to your life.

Kidding aside, the fact that English is an alphabetic language is important. This isn’t true of all languages… and it’s not true of Japanese.

The Building Blocks of Japanese

Unlike English, the Japanese language actually uses a couple writing systems.

One system is borrowed from Chinese, and — like Chinese — is logographic. This means it doesn’t use an alphabet of letters, like English does. In logographic languages, each written character stands for a whole word (or a part of the word that has its own meaning, like a prefix or a suffix.)

In Japanese, the logographic writing system is called kanji 漢字.

The word “haiku” in kanji is made up of two parts:

The first character — 俳 — is pronounced “ha” and means, well… “haiku” (or “actor,” depending on what character it’s paired with!) The second character — 句 — is pronounced “ku” and means “phrase.” Together, they refer to a haiku poem.

You’ll also see the character 俳 in other words relating to haiku poem, such as 俳人 — “haijin” or “haiku poet” — and 俳画 — “haiga” or “haiku picture.”

But, like I said: kanji is the Japanese take on a Chinese system. Japan also has a writing system all their own.

Well. Two, actually.

Hiragana and Katakana

Hiragana, the system used for most words, is made of the characters for “common” + “kana.” Katakana is “incomplete” + “kana,” and is used for foreign words… including English words and names!

In addition to the logographic system of kanji, Japanese has two syllabic writing systems: hiragana 平仮名 and katakana 片仮名. Both systems together are known as kana 仮名.

Looking at these writing systems, you might be tricked into thinking they’re alphabets:

I mean, sure. They’re long alphabets, right? Each one has way more than 26 characters.

But there are letters we recognize there on that chart, and it looks like these characters are probably matching up to those letters we already know, so… are they alphabets?

No!

Remember, hiragana and katakana are syllabaries!

Cool. Great. Thanks. But what does that mean?

You (again, 100% reasonably!)

The reason hiragana and katakana are syllabaries and not alphabets is that each character stands for an entire sound or syllable — not just the smallest bit of sound we can isolate, like with our letters!

If you’re not a teacher — or don’t have a teacher friend who yells at you for thinking “D” says “duh” like we all learned in kindergarten — take a peek at this quick video on the proper pronunciation of English letters to see how tiny letter sounds actually are.

Small, right? Hard to say without making them into syllables, even. I still struggle after almost a decade in the classroom!

Did you struggle saying them, too? Don’t worry:

Syllabaries are here to save the day!

In syllabic languages like Japanese, there is no letter “D.” But there are 5 characters that pair the sound “D” makes with a vowel sound to make an entire syllable: “da,” “di,” “du,” “de,” and “do.”

(Why do you not see “D” on the kana chart up there? Japanese recognizes that “D” sounds are actually just hard “T” sounds!)

There are characters to represent each of the vowel sounds alone, plus characters for each pairing of consonant + vowel. Sounds can also be made longer (or shorter!) by doubling the character, or changed by being smushed together with another character. Only one character represents a consonant with no vowel: ん (in hiragana) or ン (in katakana,) which makes the “n” sound. “N” is the only sound that can come at the end of a syllable.

aaaaaand…. Japanese lesson complete.

Take a deep breath.

Take a sip of your tea.

You deserve it.

I know that was a lot, but it’s important to understand how the Japanese language works if we want to understand haiku. Just like oil painters and watercolor painters use different techniques to take advantage of the properties of their unique paints, English and Japanese poetry evolved different techniques in response to the properties of their unique languages.

English poetry developed a lot of ways to rhyme.

Why?

Because it sounds cool.

Most words in English don’t rhyme. So when we find ones that do, our ears really like it. It sounds harmonious, or playful, or it just plain sticks in our ear like a squirmy little wormy.

Spoken English also tends to follow a certain cadence or pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. That’s why we care so much about rhythm in poetry (and why your high school English teacher made you memorize a bunch of funny words like “iambic pentameter.”)

What about Japanese poetry?

More words rhyme in Japanese. A lot more.

Think about it: the only consonant sound that can appear on its own is “N.” So other consonants can’t end words. That means there’s nothing stopping “bad,” “bat,” “bar,” “bag,” and so on from rhyming. It’s “ba” all the way down.

Not only that, stressed vs. unstressed syllables isn’t a thing in Japanese the same way it is in English; length of a sound carries more meaning in Japanese than stress does.

Does this mean Japanese poetry doesn’t use rhyme or meter? Of course not! Japanese poetry is just as richly varied as English poetry, and some Japanese poets choose to use rhyme or meter the same way some English poets choose not to.

But it does mean that Japanese poetry developed forms that don’t rely as much on these things — that focus on creating beauty in other aspects of language more particular to Japanese!

Which at last brings us to…

The Secret Truth About What Haiku Is, Really

Haiku are poems made up of 3 phrases, which we write in English as 3 lines. But these 3 phrases or lines don’t have 5, 7, and 5 syllables in them, respectively.

What they do have are 5, 7, and 5 sounds!

In Japanese, these units of sound are called on 音 (pronounced like “own”) or haku 拍. In English, linguists call these sound units morae. Every on takes the same length of time to say.

Syllables… Sounds… Same Difference?

Not quite! On can be the same as syllables. But they can also be shorter!

The easiest way to see the difference is to walk through a couple examples.

Let’s think about the word “Tokyo.” How many syllables?

(If you say 3, because you pronounce it “toe-key-yo,” that’s OK!)

Counting syllables in English is as easy as counting vowel sounds: we see one long “O” sound in “To”, then one more in “kyo.”

So the word “Tokyo” is only 2 syllables long… but it’s actually double that if you’re counting on!

How?

Well, the easiest way to count on is to count written characters. So let’s take a look at “Tokyo” in hiragana:

How many characters do you see there?

4, right?

…or did you say 5?

Take a look at the fourth character. See how it’s smaller than the rest? That’s because it’s actually smushed onto the third character. On their own, those are the characters for “ki” — き— and “yo” — よ. Smushed together, they say “kyo.”

So, counting “kyo” as one character, we see that “Tokyo” is made from 4 separate sounds: と+う+きょ+う.

You already know きょ says “kyo.” You can probably guess that と at the beginning says “to.” So what the heck are those other two characters doing in there?

Remember how we talked about being able to make sounds longer by doubling them?

Bingo.

Both of the “O” sounds in “Tokyo” are long “O” sounds! (And by “long,” we literally mean longer in length, not the English meaning of “long O” as in “hope” vs. “hop.”)

Checking everything I say against the kana chart? You’ll see thatう says “U,” not “O.”
U doubles O in hiragana. Just go with it.
+10 points for paying attention.

Those two う’s in there are telling you to make the “O” sounds longer, so they each count twice: “to” + “o” + “kyo” + “o”!

So there you have it. Tokyo is 4 on, but only 2 syllables!

Want another example?

Let’s use one of my favorite words: Unicorn!

Count the syllables: U + ni + corn. 3, right?

Want to guess how many on it is?

Here’s the word:

Can you count the characters?

There are no tricky smushed-together characters this time, so if you counted 5 characters… you’re right! There are 5 characters: ユ+ニ+コ+ー+ン.

The first 2 characters make up the “uni” part: “yu” + “ni.” But the last syllable — “corn” — actually takes 3 sounds to make: “ko”+ “o” + “n.”

What Does this Mean for Haiku?

Remember, you know the secret truth about haiku: haiku are poems of 5-7-5 on, not poems of 5-7-5 syllables! And you’ve seen how it can take 2 or even 3 on to write just a single syllable.

So imagine you’re a haikujin, a haiku poet.

You want to write a haiku about a Tokyo unicorn.

Can you use “Tokyo unicorn” as the first line of your haiku?

If you don’t know the truth, and think the first line of a haiku needs 5 syllables, you would say “sure, why not?” After all, “To” + “kyo” + “u” + “ni” + “corn” is a perfect 5 syllables, right?

But you’re in the Secret Haiku Society now, so you can’t be fooled: you know that “Tokyo unicorn” is 5 syllables… but it’s actually 9 on! Not only can you not use “Tokyo unicorn” in your first line, you can’t fit it anywhere in a haiku — not even the longer 7 on line in the middle!

What’s the takeaway?

17-on haiku are a lot shorter than people think.

That’s one of the things that makes the beauty of haiku even more impressive; if you think being profound and poetic in 17 syllables is hard, try it in 10-14 — that’s the actual average length of a haiku if you measure in syllables.

Thinking about trying to paint a vivid image that speaks to people across centuries in just 17 on or 10 syllables — the same length as “My name is Michaelina Deneka” — is…

Well…

Let’s just say it makes me understand why the Japanese government named that Matsuo Bashō guy a god after his death and forbid anyone from criticizing his poetry.

Feeling like you need godlike powers, too, to understand it all? It’s OK. Your initiation into the ancient order of people who understand haiku is almost complete. Promise.

I have a few more pearls of Writer’s Wisdom to share with you, but they can all be summed up by saying:

Haiku is More than Just Counting 5-7-5

Heck, if you’re writing in English, it’s really not about counting 5-7-5 at all. Dig into this great study of Japanese haiku metrics and their implication for English haiku by Richard Gilbert and Judy Yoneoka if you want the nitty gritty of it.

But in short: stop stressing about syllables.

Our friends Richard and Judy found in that study that not even a quarter of English haiku actually follow that 5-7-5 syllable thing. Because it was never actually a thing in the first place. If you focus on writing three short lines, and having the middle one be slightly longer… you’re golden.

Besides. There are way more important aspects of haiku that get left out in our Western obsession with counting to 17.

There are two other haiku rules, in particular, that you should know about.

The first is the easiest to explain:

Haiku use season words.

In Japanese, these season words are called kigo 季語. The names of the seasons themselves count as kigo, as do the names of specific months. But words associated with the seasons also count: snow in the winter, cherry blossoms in the spring, cicadas in the summer, and so on.

Why? Because haiku were originally the first stanza of longer poems, called renga. Renga were written by groups of poets who gathered together to write collaboratively… and even competitively! The first stanza of the poem used a kigo to describe when the poem was written, then the kigo in following stanzas had to go in season order. Eventually, the first stanzas of renga became poems all by themselves — what we know now as haiku — but the tradition of using a kigo stuck around.

Of course, late spring looks a lot different in Japan than it does where I live… and I’m still in the northern hemisphere! For my friend in Australia, this time of year looks wildly different; as I’m warming up for summer, he’s bunkering down for winter!

So while avalanches and tilling rice paddies are perfectly acceptable late spring kigo in Japan, poets from other places use kigo that match their seasons! For me, late spring means daffodils and baby skunks and creameries opening back up.

Think of kigo for where you call home as we dive into the final rule of haiku:

Haiku use cutting words

Now, I’ve got to be straight with you, dear readers.

Cutting words are not quite as simple as season words.

In fact, cutting words — or kireji 切れ字 — do not even exist in English.

This isn’t a way we categorize words in English, a lot of the words don’t even translate into English… I could almost honestly forgive most English definitions of haiku leaving kireji out of the rules and sticking with “5 7 5 syllables, please stop asking.”

But we’re not going to settle for “sorta right,” are we?

No!

We want Technically Correct^tm, and we’re going to get it if it kills us! (Which it hopefully won’t!)

If you want the whole entire spiel on the many functions and categories of kireji and what words count as one, I will point you to this more in-depth blog post about it: What the Heck Are Kireji? Enjoy the mind stretch.

But I’m going to cut to the chase about cutting words:

You can think of kireji as a spoken pause that gives structural support to the haiku and helps shape the reader’s understanding of its images.

The Japanese version of a question mark is one example. And this is how you’ll most often see kireji represented in English: as punctuation. Em dashes (—) and ellipses (…) are especially common, as they invite the reader to pause and reflect.

Kireji usually appear at the ends of lines. In the middle of a haiku, kireji both cut and conjoin the two images on either side of them; the reader is invited to consider the connections and contrasts between them. At the end of a haiku, kireji create both finality… and circularity. A cutting word at the end of a haiku can draw readers back to the beginning of the poem: an infinite loop.

Kireji were an important part of the rules of writing renga, so — like kigo — they stuck around when the first stanza of the much longer renga became the short and sweet haiku. They can create a lot of feeling and complexity in a haiku, but a lot of their magic only exists in their mother language.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is…

We Did It!

Our answer to “what is haiku?” is officially

Technically Correct^tm!

You did a great job grasping some really tough concepts today; it’s not easy to understand ideas that don’t exist in your language, so give yourself a ton of credit for making it to the end!

I know that was a lot to take in, so let’s sum up what we learned:

Not bad for a day’s learning, right?

Now get out there and celebrate National Haiku Day by spreading your new knowledge of what haiku is, really, to anyone who will listen! Haiku is one of the most recognizable forms of poetry in the world, so let’s give it the recognition it deserves — the Technically Correct^tm kind.

And let me know in the comments: What is your favorite 5-syllable word? “Refrigerator” is good, but there’s better out there! (Mine is “supercilious,” because it’s super silly-ous to say!)

Until next time, I’m,

PS:

Looking for a lesson on what haiku is (really) that’s aimed at younger learners? Don’t miss the resource on Teachers Pay Teachers: Haiku Close Reading — 3 Differentiated Informational Texts + Response Activities!

Your students will receive the (way) condensed truth about haiku and meet an unbelievable cast of characters as they take a quick trip through haiku history! Plus, they’ll strengthen their ability to comprehend and critically analyze as they read, using 3 guided close reading activities that are aligned to Common Core standards — perfect for students grades 5-8!