For the Love of Haiku

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Many of us fell in love with haiku trying our hands at poetry for the first time in elementary school. The 17-syllable form is simple and accessible, yet offers room for depth, nuance, and beauty in a tiny space. Today, we’re delighted to share five favorite haiku from poets around WordPress.com.

“To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.”
— Robert Graves

TANYA CLIFF

We loved the spare imagery and chilling ending to author Tanya Cliff’s poem, “Spooky Haiku #2,” as well as the photo she took to illustrate it:

wind rustles the leaves

strips the branches down to bark

then skeletons dance

Photo by Tanya Cliff

Literary Lemonades

Poet Neha Sharma’s haiku generated some wonderful discussion as readers offered their interpretation of her haiku, “In One Piece”:

Through the window bars,
the moon appears in one piece.
She decides to leave.

What does Neha’s poem suggest to you? Drop by and let her know.

Melinda J. Irvine

Melinda J. Irvine is an Australian copywriter, poet, author, and musician. In addition to haiku, she writes all types of poetry and has sections of her site dedicated to free verse, limerick, prose poetry, and senryu, among other forms. We loved the melancholy feeling in “Someone Before Me.” The accompanying photograph documents the scene.

on a lonely shore
someone had stood before me
webbed footprints in sand

Photo by Melinda J. Irvine

Ten Thousand Haiku

Calvin Olsen, the poet behind Ten Thousand Haiku, is on a mission to create — you guessed it — 10,000 haiku, a project expected to take 27 years at one haiku per day. We loved the beauty of breakfast, courtesy of haiku 2542.

Corn meal waffle spills
From the iron: sweet batter
Hardens on one side

“The poet is the priest of the invisible.”
— Wallace Stevens

the poetry of photography

Melinda Green Harvey posts a black-and-white image and an accompanying haiku every day at the poetry of photography. We loved the way she makes the seemingly mundane beautiful by documenting it with an image and a few words.

Detail: joists and wall
and smattering of shingles.
Springlake’s fire station.

Photo by Melinda Green Harvey

For more, check out the haiku tag in the WordPress.com Reader.

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November 1, 2018Poetry, ,
70 Comments

  24. Thank you for sharing my poem here Krista, I was thrilled to stumble across this today. I love the haiku form and try to find a new poem most days from the forest, oceans or cities I am wandering through at the time.

    On my WordPress blog I always include an accompanying photograph that was taken at the time — sometimes the photo suggesting the poem and at other times the poem demands the photo. It’s a big of a tribute to the Haiga style of poetry where the old Japanese masters painted scenes to accompany the poems.

    Again many thanks.

    Melinda J. Irvine

    Liked by 15 people

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