I enjoy writing haiku poems. One reason is that haiku is short and you can kind of get it done in one sitting. Yet, good haikus are hard to compose.
If you want to try writing one, all you need is a pen or a pencil, but it helps to have a notebook or a piece of paper. You write three lines, and the first line you try to make it in 5 syllables, the second 7 and the third 5 – simple, really simple, isn’t it.
The second constraint is the theme, which has to be about seasons or weather.
Why? You may ask about this requirement. Well, it is about honoring the Japanese tradition. One man who came up with the idea of writing haiku poems was a Japanese poet and vagabond by the name of Basho. Who was he? Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) was a famous Japanese poet. He composed about 1000 haiku poems through the lifetime. He spent time traveling around Japan.
His writing “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” is the most famous haiku collection in Japan.
I just finished one – in fact, I was composing it while I was in a car, getting stuck in the jammed traffic of Bangkok.
Here it is:
A raining evening
Programming in a cafe
Traffic jammed outside