New to Haiku: Negative Space — Some Thoughts on Ma

It may seem paradoxical that haiku poets strive for moments keenly perceived while also leaving ambiguity in the poem. The late poet Ellen Compton once told me that the shape of a haiku is in the blank spaces. In other words, the gap between fragment and phrase invites readers in and allows them to participate in the haiku and draw their own conclusions. Haiku don’t reveal a complete story until the reader enters the poem.

What does this mean for you as a haiku poet?

In short, the images you don’t present in your haiku are as important as the ones you do. Lee Gurga, in Haiku: A Poet’s Guide, puts it this way:

“. . . Sumi-e, the Japanese art of black ink drawing, makes maximum use of the white space on the paper. The blank space is as important as the inked areas in conveying the complete image. This is what artists call ‘negative space.’ Haiku, too, makes use of negative space. The reader is made to visualize what is not there. If the haiku tells too much it snatches the moment away from the readers, not allowing them entry.”

How Do We Define Empty/Negative Space in Haiku? Or, What is Ma?

In Japanese, this empty space—the negative space—is known as ma. I have read that there is no exact English word equivalent to ma. In her paper, “The Aesthetic of ma – The Charged Emptiness in Japanese Art,” Ilana Singer Blaine writes:

“Japanese dictionaries translate ma as the space ‘in-between’, the time between two events, a pause, room, dimension, or between. In some arts, this loaded absence is a deliberate, timed ‘artistic pause’. From all this, it is evident that Japanese music, poetry and theatre place great emphasis on the pause, and the rhythm derives from the artist’s awareness of when to insert this break, and not just to begin the next act.”

She goes on to add:

“Obviously the commencement of the note, the sound, or the brushstroke is very important, but a completed work emphasizing the pause and its duration underlines that its importance is equal to that of the sound, word, movement, line or patch. This endows every element of a painting with equal value, just as, in Japanese music, emphasis is on pause and sound alike.” (emphasis mine)

In his essay, “MA: Place, Space, Void,” Gunter Nitschke describes how ma is infused into every facet of Japanese life: from objective, to subjective, to metaphysical. I read this to mean that, in haiku, ma can be thought of as the backdrop—the empty space—of your poem in spatial, temporal, and metaphysical ways. It is an active and equal partner to the words printed on the page.

I’ve heard some poets refer to ma in haiku as the poem’s “breathing room” or “dreaming room.” Ideally, you want just enough to make the haiku accessible to your reader, but not so much that they get lost or so little that they are bored. The correct amount of ma will leave behind a haiku with resonance: one that can be read multiple times in myriad ways and never seems to dull with repetition.

I like to think of ma as providing a doorway or entrance into a haiku, so I was pleased to read this definition from Blaine:

“The character for the word ma (間 ) is a combination of two Chinese characters. The character ‘gate’ consists of two posts, on each of which is a kind of little door. It represents, in general, the great gate at the entrance to a Buddhist temple. In the centre there was originally the character for ‘moon’ (月), that was later changed to the character for ‘sun’ (日). Sun and moon signify a day of the week, and moon also symbolizes the months of the year. In this context, they are connected to time. Thus ma invites the viewer to study the moonlight or the setting sun – the hour of dusk – through the space between the gateposts.”

How Do We Shape ma?

Ma in haiku is largely created via the kire, or cut. (You can read more about using punctuation to create kire here.) But that is just the beginning of crafting empty space in your haiku.

In a sense, ma is like the wind. We see evidence of its effects without ever actually seeing it. It is the invisible scaffolding that helps to hold our haiku in place. Careful and precise word choices, use of punctuation (or not), and attention to the shape of the poem and the way it looks on the page are some key components.

Frankly, I still find trying to pin down ma mystifying, so I know that it can seem overwhelming if you are new to haiku. I thought some examples might be helpful.

• Too Much ma

Take this “haiku,” for example:

our goldfish
ten years ago
the county fair

You might be scratching your head. What does this poem even mean? Why should you care? This is an example of too much negative space. You can’t enter the haiku because I didn’t provide an adequate doorway. There aren’t enough details to pull the poem together.

• Too Little ma

Now, I could have written:

ten years after
my kid won a goldfish at the county fair
it’s still alive

This would be an example of too little negative space (and a “haiku” that reads like a sentence), putting the poem well into the “so what?” category. You know everything that transpired; the haiku—if we can even call it that—doesn’t leave any room for the imagination. The door of the haiku is firmly closed. You can read this poem and walk on by knowing that you aren’t missing anything by not engaging with it.

• First Cut of ma?

What if I wrote:

ten years after
the county fair . . .
our goldfish won

Does this version work? Maybe. It’s at least an improvement. There’s an entryway into the poem after the first two lines. You are now standing with me, ten years after the fair, looking at a “winning” fish. That’s a step closer than the first two versions—you hung around long enough to peek in the doorway. You might understand my intent with the poem this time, although I suspect this haiku would only make sense in America where people regularly win goldfish at county fairs!

With all three of these “haiku” (and I use the term loosely), I am describing the same experience—Jim the Fish lived a long and seemingly happy life at our house despite his fateful start as a carnival prize when my oldest child was two. Ember may have won a goldfish at the county fair, but our fish won a new lease on life! For you, the reader, my varying use of negative space in the three examples above allowed you to enter the poem (or not) and influenced whether you cared about what you were reading.

At this point, I have decided to set my “Jim the Fish poem” aside. I can always come back to it later for more editing using the techniques that I mentioned earlier for shaping ma in haiku:

• Are my word choices the best for the haiku? Now would be a good time to consult a thesaurus, as Brad Bennett shared in our last New to Haiku post: “Opening Doors: In Praise of the Thesaurus.”
• Can the reader find multiple meanings in individual words or phrases?
• Do various connotations of words and phrases work well together? If not, does this disjoint nature improve the haiku?
• Is my punctuation effective? Do I stumble or misread words when reciting the haiku aloud?
• How does the haiku look on the page? (For my poem above, does the ellipsis mimic bubbles as well as I’d hoped?)
• Is this the best version of the haiku that I can write at this time? If yes, I can decide to stick it in a drawer and forget it, hold on to it for further revision down the line, or submit it now for publication.

But there is a final consideration:

• Does the haiku have a doorway? Have I invited the reader in to stay awhile? Asked another way, does the haiku have resonance? Are there multiple ways of reading and interpreting the poem? Does the haiku stick with you long after you’ve read it? Do you find yourself reading the haiku again and again and learning something new each time you encounter it?

If your haiku has resonance, you can be certain that you’ve made effective use of ma.

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For More Reading

Blaine, Ilana Singer. Winter 2015. “The Aesthetic of ma – The Charged Emptiness in Japanese Art,” on Academia.edu.

Gurga, Lee. May 1, 2003. Haiku: A Poet’s Guide. Modern Haiku Press.

Nitschke, Gunter. May 16, 2018. “MA: Place, Space, Void,” in Kyoto Journal.

Simpson, Sandra. February 3, 2024. “Letting in White Space,” on her blog breath: a collection of haiku. 

Welch, Michael Dylan. July 21, 2023 (updated version). “Finding the Sky,” on Graceguts.

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Do you have thoughts on ma? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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My thanks to Jim Kacian for reviewing an earlier draft of this piece for me. Any lingering errors are mine.

[Updated on May 12, 2025 to add Michael Dylan Welch’s excellent piece to the “For More Reading” section.]