NATIONAL HAIKU DAY

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Haiku poetry is a form of Japanese poetry that is often taught in school. You may have been taught to write this poetry using 5 syllables for the first line, 7 syllables for the second line, and 5 syllables for the third and final line. This is perfectly acceptable, however, it’s not necessarily the traditional way.

The reason the English and traditional way of writing Haiku do not align is that English syllables and Japanese syllables do not work in the exact same way. In English, we are dealing with part of a word that contains a single vowel sound and is pronounced as a unit. In the Japanese language, a “syllable” is simply a chunk of sound. Unless you speak Japanese – You’re going to write your Haiku the English way, so don’t worry too much about it. It’s just a great thing to know the TRUTH about Haiku.

One of the traditions of Japanese Haiku you can include in your English Haiku is to make your poem about nature.

Try your hand at writing Haiku with our free resource designed especially for National Haiku Day! This is a Video and Template set from Happy Hive Homeschooling.

If you would like to dive deeper into poetry, we have a set of 7 poetry templates available in the full resource: POETRY MADE EASY designed for April, National Poetry Month.

To help you on National Haiku Day I have a FREEBIE for you – It is the HAIKU section from our Complete Poetry Made Easy Template Set.