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

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

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.

For more, check out the haiku tag in the WordPress.com Reader.
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So much fun to read! Thanks
for sharing! ❤
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Yah…it’s fun
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Amazing. Love it!
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Beautiful.
Thanks for sharing
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This is great!
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I have just started to better understand the versatility of haikus. Thank you for sharing!
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I love haiku! I’ll use this as inspiration for my next one!
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I’d never heard of Haiku.
Now I am inspired.
Thank you for sharing. (17 Syllables lol)
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Well played!
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❤
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These are all cool!
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Very well written!
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This is beautiful 🙂
LikeLiked by 14 people
pretty cool thanks a lot!
LikeLiked by 14 people
Awesome stuff thank you still working on mine slowly
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I love it
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These are beautiful! Do you research these people? Just curious about what tickles your poetry fancy 🙂
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I did a fair bit of searching in the WordPress.com Reader to find the poets featured in this post.
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this was really interesting!
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happy little poems! love
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Wonderful
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Thanks for sharing this. 😎
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Lovely!
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How fun!
LikeLiked by 13 people
love it!
LikeLiked by 12 people
😙😙😙😙😙😙
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Congrats to each poet selected!!!!
LikeLiked by 11 people
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
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Thanks for sharing your poetry with the world, Melinda! I was so happy to find your site.
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I love the cover page picture
LikeLiked by 10 people
So nice
LikeLiked by 11 people
they called my posts haiku
before I knew what it was
I still don’t know
LikeLiked by 11 people
I see what you did there 😉
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Bravo👍🏼
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Very good read, thank you.
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I love haiku. They capture so much in one moment. I enjoyed these, thank you.
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💖
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amazing. more power to u💕
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❣
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You made me read more about it!! All are pretty.
But some are just magical! Thank you.
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Cool! It makes me want to write some funny haikus. Can they be funny? I hope so! Lol
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Love it
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So nice 😇
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I love it
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The art of writing is magical.
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Thank you for promoting haiku! Congratulations to the featured poets!
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I had never heard of this poet . I really enjoyed this read since I have a passion for poetry Gothe is one of my favorites. I will be looking up more info on Haikus.
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I enjoy the rhythm of a haiku
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I love it
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How fun )
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Inspiring. Thanks for sharing!
LikeLiked by 8 people
Brilliant, thank you
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I love the quote from Robert graves
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Great piece!
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Love Haiku it is great meditative piece. Some think is easy but it not. Let creative juices flow. thank you for posting it is a great read blessing Peace
LikeLiked by 4 people
Perfect! I’m really getting interested in this form of poetry at the moment. Great to get connected through these wonderful pieces. Thank you!
LikeLiked by 5 people