Let's Write haiku like Bashō
#TankaTuesday
It’s not too late to write haiku with us this week on tankatuesday.com.
Selma is our host, and she shared haiku by Bashō.
HOW do we write like Bashō?
What does that mean? I wrote my haiku (below) in the s-l-s syllable count because Bashō’s haiku are translated from Japanese. The Japanese count sounds (called mora), not syllables, and their words have more sounds, so it seems like the syllable count should be more than 5/7/5. But that’s not really true.
Here’s an example. We say haiku: (hai-ku) in English, but in Japanese,
they pronounce haiku with three sounds: ha-i-ku.
“Quite simply, because Japanese words have more syllables, you can say a lot more in 17 syllables in English than you can in Japanese. That’s why, if you write a 17-syllable haiku in English, more often than not one entire line of its three lines will have to be amputated to make the poem fit 17 sounds in Japanese (if you translate it). Thus, despite the way haiku has been widely mistaught in English for decades as 5-7-5 syllables, it actually should not surprise you that the vast majority of haiku published in leading haiku journals and anthologies are not 5-7-5.”
How Many Syllables Should a Haiku Contain:
The Haiku Handbook, by William J. Higginson & Penny Harter, on pg. 102 states: “As a result of this study, I concluded that an English-language translation of a typical Japanese haiku should have ten to twelve syllables in order to simulate the duration of the original.”
Here are my haiku examples:
a new coolness
at dawn, autumn steals in
clouds in my coffeeblue autumn sky
steam rises from the rice cooker
noontime heatautumn lamplight
shadow dance
chrysanthemums glow
If you enjoy syllabic poetry, join us here:
https://tankatuesday.com/2025/09/30/tankatuesday-poetry-challenge-no-26-haiku-like-basho-09-30-25/
I’m sending this as a test post. I’ll be sharing our challenge posts and other information about syllabic poetry on Substack. Thanks. ~Colleen~