Does Haiku Have to be 17 Syllables?
Short answer: no
Long answer: depends
In Japanese a haiku is 17 morae. A morae is a sound unit similar but not entirely equal to English syllables.
Rather than go into details of the Japanese language, some examples to illustrate the difference:
In English Tokyo is 3 syllables. 2 if you try to glide the kyo in the Japanese way. In Japanese, it's 4 morae. To-u-kyo-u.
In English bacon is 2 syllables. In Japanese, it's 4 morae. ba-a-co-n†.
And so on.
The two ideas don't overlap. It's incorrect to say haiku are 17 syllables.
This brings us to the next point...
In Japanese, haiku are very very short
As we saw above, Japanese words tend to take more morae/syllables than English words do. As a result, haiku in Japanese are really short. You think haiku in English are short? Compared to Japanese haiku, English haiku are long!
Look at a haiku from Issa I previously posted.
蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山
Katatsumuri / sorosoro nobore / Fuji no yama
Literally it says: snail / slow climb / Mt Fuji
That's it! Whereas if we padded this out to a full 17 syllables, we might say something like:
the slow tiny snail
climbs up little by little
the great mount fuji
Compared to the Japanese haiku, this is bloated and ugly, telling us all kinds of things we don't need to know.
In Japanese they typically say a haiku should be one breath. Using 17 syllables in English, however, each line becomes one breath—and maybe more for the middle line.
17 syllables is too long
Some haiku poets say we should make the English haiku 11 syllables long. 3/5/3 to better match the briefness of the Japanese haiku. While I do think that would be better than what we do now, I don't think it would work.
Jack Kerouac addressed this:
The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don't think American Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry about syllables because American speech is something again...bursting to pop.
Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella.
Kerouac wrote a lot of great haiku in his life, almost none of them with 17 syllables. Most very very short, like this one:
No telegram today
only more leaves
fell.
I agree with him. Haiku in English should just be short verses. No need to pay attention to syllables, just make it short. Aim for one breath.
Having said that, I do know that having some structure is actually better for some people. It frees them up in a sense and allows more creativity. If that is you, I'd suggest aiming for a 11 syllable 3/5/3 haiku.
The English Haiku
You may get the idea that I think using 17 syllables for haiku in English is wrong and it should be much shorter. I do—but I also don't. Let me explain.
As Kerouac said the American haiku is not the same as the Japanese haiku. They are different things. English and Japanese are very different languages and the small verse just doesn't really translate that well.
So it depends on you. Are you trying to capture the feeling of a Japanese haiku? If so, make it as short as you can. Also use a word referring to the current season if you can. Even free-form haiku in Japan today that completely disregard morae count still often use nature words. Also try to include some kind of juxtaposition of two images. That wouldn't be a Japanese haiku, but it would get you close.
evening
snow beating down
my son is snoring
If that is just too short for you, and you want to stick to the 17 syllables you learned in grade school, go for it. I have nothing against that form. I just do think we should rename it because it's not really haiku. Now I know that just isn't going to happen. Too many people in the English speaking world know haiku as only that. Oh well. I'm ok with that. I just want people to know that shorter haiku that don't count syllables are not incorrect (arguably they are more correct)
Footnotes
†: Actually in romaji it'd probably be spelled beikon. I write baacon just to make it easier to read.
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Wow, this is so interesting! I never knew all of these details about Japanese Haiku vs English Haiku. Japanese is a very interesting language - my grown son was teaching himself it about a year ago while he was living with us for a few months.
Did he stick with it? It really is a great language to learn. Completely different from English, which gives us a totally different way to look at the world.
Well @dbooster, I'm not sure if he has had time to continue working on it. He worked diligently on it more than 6 months before he started on another project. He really loves learning new languages! I think he still wants to travel to Japan someday and perhaps even live there for a bit.
That would be great. Hope he can come here sometime!
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I'd make the last line "son snoring" or "snoring son" to reflect the shortness of the earlier lines.
That's a good idea! I didn't really think about that too much when I wrote it, I just wanted to give an example of juxtapositioning 2 different images. If I edit that further to use anywhere I will have to consider your change.
I m ay have to quit claiming I'm not capable of helping in poetry. ;-)
This is a really interesting post. I had no idea syllabilization (word?) was so different. I think that the “one breath” better preserves the spirit of the form, but agree with you that there is merit in other forms as well. Nicely done ❤️
Thank you :)
I think Americans also miss the idea of a cutting word, kireji, in haiku... they do the 17 syllables and they're done. I like your idea of shortening them, without or without syllable limits, because... poetry. lol But I also like that cutting word, that the first half of the haiku should present one perspective, and the second, another, even an opposite perspective. I wrote this "long version" haiku years ago and it demonstrates two ideas/images facing one another, in a sort of contrast:
walking downhill my
back to the sun, I notice
the flowers face me
I like that. A little long ;) But it flows nicely and has great contrast. That is another thing to consider that I didn't mention. English benefits from flowing phrases more than Japanese does, which is fine with just isolated words.
I never really know how to deal with cutting words when talking about them. I usually just try to tell people to give contrasting images, as I did above, and as your haiku wonderfully does. A complicated topic that I'd need a much longer essay to go into.
Please do, some day!
Are we really bound by any poetic form? I, myself, am a fan of the 17 syllable English form, but we can change it however we want. I mean most of what we write doesn't really fit the definition of haiku at any length. I mean it kind of does, but that is because the definition has changed. So what's the difference? If we start of to write a haiku and write a piece that doesn't fit the definition, is the piece any less valid? Is the art not preserved? Good discussion.
You make a fantastic point!
Poetry can be whatever we want, I think. If 17 syllables isn't enough, do more. If it's too much, do less. In writing this post I was mainly responding to the "common knowledge" that haiku MUST be exactly 17 syllables because that is what the Japanese haiku is.
Personally I am all for free-form haiku. Try to keep it short, but if your message calls for something longer, go for it. I don't think sticking to 3 lines is necessary either. A future post.
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