Poetry Haiku

Poetry

​Haiku

​Although most of Brown Girl Dreaming is written in free verse poetry (which we will learn more about tomorrow), some of the chapters are haiku.

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​Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry. To understand haiku, you need to pay attention to the syllables of the words used in the poem.

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​The most important rule of traditional haiku is the syllable count. A haiku is three lines long, and there are five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third for a total of seventeen syllables.

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​Find some of the haiku in Brown Girl Dreaming. All of the "how to listen" chapters are haiku as well as "p.s. 106 haiku".  Count the syllables in each line. Did you count a total of seventeen syllables per haiku?

​Traditionally, Japanese haiku will have some natural element involved, some indication of a season, and some other guidelines as well. But we have learned that, when it comes to writing poetry, there really are no rules as poetry can be written any way the author sees fit.

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We can see that in Woodson's writing, she doesn't make these references to nature or the seasons, but rather makes most of her haiku about listening.

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​Another rule in haiku is that the last word is often very important. The poet expects you'll read the poem and contemplate it for a bit afterward. That last word is the word that will be strongest in your mind while you're thinking about the poem after you've read it.

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Notice some of the last words in Woodson's haiku: memory, brown (referring to her skin color), startled, true, disappears, listen, heard, and listening. These are key words in these poems, and she wants them to linger in the reader's mind.

Open Ended

Now write your own haiku! It can be about anything. The only rules you need to follow are;

- It must be three lines and those lines must have 5-7-5 syllables

- The last word must be important to the theme of your poem