Some say it captures the ephemeral beauty of nature. Some believe it to be the essence of a keenly-perceived moment. Others describe it as the blank shape between thoughts. But there is no official definition of the Japanese poetry form of haiku. I prefer poet Robert Spiess\u2019s description of a \u201cbreath-length poem\u201d in which two objects are juxtaposed \u201cin a now-moment of awareness\u201d.<\/p>\n
Haiku is taught in the west as the \u201cfive-seven-five\u201d structure, containing 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second and 5 in the third. However, this is now considered to be a misunderstanding of the Japanese \u201conji\u201d or units of sound which don\u2019t necessarily correlate with western syllables. There\u2019s no hard-and-fast rule regarding the number of syllables required to form haiku, but I think we can all agree that a good haiku is small but perfectly-formed.<\/p>\n
Haiku developed in the first millennium A.D., and in the 17th<\/sup> century it was perfected by the poet now considered to be the master of the form, Matsuo Basho. Since then its popularity has spread across the globe; so much so that there is now an international foundation dedicated to promoting this most precious of art forms and containing the largest online repository of English-language haiku in the world.<\/p>\n