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Possible Haiku rules

«Possible» because they are not strict rules but a help to create good haiku.

  1. Aim of the haiku is to create a so called «haiku moment». A moment, that should happen inside the reader, a little lightning bolt for a moment, a mini-satori, an awakening, a moment where the window opens and the reader becomes the current going through...
  2. seventeen syllables in the form of 5-7-5
  3. or seventeen syllables or less structured in
  4. three lines
  5. use a kigo, a word indicating the season. if possible use not more than one kigo per haiku
  6. write in the present tense
  7. use a simple language
  8. the topic should be nature (or «human's surrounding nature»)
  9. no methaphors, no word-plays, no word-inventions
  10. show, don't tell (http://www.haiku.insouthsea.co.uk/teachshow_s1.htm)
  11. keep it as short as possible (letters, syllables, words)
  12. no word repetitions
  13. use no filling words
  14. describe something, that could be an observable scene in real life, something that you lived yourself or that you imagine (no phantasies like "then she defeated the dragon with the fireball")
  15. make the haiku moment unique by describing a situation, that everybody knows deep in their heart but no haiku poet described before you.


A good haiku poet would, so my personal opinion, probably also automatically keep to following rules:

a) no involvement of believe-systems in the way of "this is the only true belief-system"
b) no (or only few, specially chosen) references to his / her own ego / false self
c) no active exclusion of or aversion against any topic, that has to do with real life (in clear words: if somebody would write a good haiku with the topic of shitting, pissing, making love, dying, masturbating, killing, sickness, pornography, sexual abuse, corpses, cannibalism, drug consume... that fullfills rule number 1. of this article, a good haiku poet would most probably accept it as is and not reject it nor feel inside him- / herself any aversion against such a haiku)
d) a contemporary, good haiku poet might also accept a word as kigo word, that has not a relation to the seasons but to ANY expression of circular time perception (in contrast to, for example, linear time perception).


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