A Few Tips About Writing Haiku:
- A good haiku consists of two images juxtaposed together using as simple a language as possible allowing the reader to visualize the scene and fill all the things left unsaid.
- Usually in haiku, one image acts as a fragment and the other as a phrase. These two are traditionally separated by a keriji (cutting word). In English, we make use of punctuation like ellipses (…), em-dash (—) and other characters to denote a cut/break between the two images. This break between the two images in the haiku has a lot of significance and plays a major role in how deep and vivid your haiku becomes in the reader’s mind. It is not merely a punctuation!
- The #HaikuSeed prompt is just that – a seed. Your haiku need not feature the prompt word as long as the haiku is triggered from the prompt word and contains some aspect relevant to the prompt word.
- Try to use a kigo (seasonal word/reference/context) in your haiku, be it the prompt word itself or something else you find apt as historically the likes of Basho, Issa, Buson have created wonders with haiku themed around nature, allowing portals to open up in the reader’s minds into unseen and unexperienced worlds.
Useful Resources To Learn More About Haiku
- The Heart of a Haiku by Kala Ramesh – The British Haiku Society
- New to Haiku? – The Haiku Foundation
Submission Guidelines
There are three ways you can submit your haiku written for #HaikuSeed prompt:
- On Twitter, use hashtag #HaikuSeed in your tweet along with your haiku.
- On your blog/website, add a link to this post so we get a pingback that allows us to be aware of your blogpost hosting your haiku.
- Leave your haiku as a comment here with your name.
Please submit only 2 or 3 haiku for each prompt. We strongly request writers to not spam the #HaikuSeed hashtag on Twitter for other haiku you’ve not written for our prompt as it becomes difficult to sift through all the entries each week.
Hope wonderful haiku blossom from our #HaikuSeed prompts.
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