April 17 - International Haiku Poetry Day

Happy International Haiku Poetry Day! Observed annually on April 17, today encourages any and all to try their hand in creativity.  

Haiku poetry is a form of Japanese poetry that is non-rhyming and usually consists of three lines with a syllable pattern of five-seven-five.  

Usually, an element of nature, a season, moment of beauty, or an individual experience inspires haiku poems. Sensory language is used to capture a feeling, image or moment. 

From Haiku: This Other World 

Richard Wright (1908-1960) 

Whitecaps on the bay: 
A broken signboard banging 

In the April wind. 

As one of the world’s oldest and regularly used poetry, some recognizable poets wrote many haiku.  

While the most well-known is Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, others we may recognize are English poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake, American poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor T.S. Eliot or African-American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou.  

And as small as the poem may be, they can be quite challenging to write. Try capturing an entire moment or emotion in seventeen syllables and getting it right.  

However, English haiku does not always follow the strict syllable count found in Japanese haiku. The typical length of haiku found in English language journals is ten-fourteen syllables versus the five-seven-five syllables used in the Japanese language. 

Even in film, the story can also be written in the format of haiku. 

American screenwriter, director and visual effects supervisor Dan O'Bannon wrote his script for Ridley Scott's 1979 American science-fiction horror film 'Alien. 

This was in a manner Pixar-based screenwriter and director Andrew Stanton found reminded him of haiku, where visual descriptions were done in continuous lines of a few words. 

Stanton wrote his robot dialogue for the 2008 American animation/family film 'WALL-E' conventionally, but placed them in brackets, formatting his script in a manner reminiscent of O'Bannon's. 

HOW TO OBSERVE 

Celebrate by creating a haiku poem of your own!  What will you use for inspiration? Take a walk and draw from the world around you.  

Encourage friends to join you and share your haiku. Be sure to include one or two senses in your poems, such as touch or sound. Spend time reading haiku poetry as well. 

Post your haiku poem on social media using #NationalHaikuPoetryDay. 

Educators, visit the National Day Calendar® Classroom for a project linked to National Haiku Day. 

HISTORY 

In 2007, Sari Granstaff registered International Haiku Poetry Day. In 2012, The Haiku Foundation implemented the day as a project. 

#NationalHaikuPoetryDay 

@theHaikuFoundation
@Haikutopia 

@nichecinema