New to Haiku: Haiku Basics
Do you know someone who is new to haiku but don’t know where to point them for some basics? Or maybe you’d like to brush up on some haiku basics yourself?
Every post in New to Haiku is tagged to (hopefully!) make it easier for you to navigate and find content here. For example, poet interviews are tagged with the poet’s name. Advice for Beginners also has its own tag (which I mention near the beginning of most interview posts). Blog tags can be found at the very bottom of every New to Haiku post, after the comments. You can click on blog tags to find other posts within that tag category. However, tags can be easy to miss if you aren’t aware of them.
This brings me to Haiku Basics. I use this tag for New to Haiku introductory and instructional material, and this is mentioned on the New to Haiku landing page. However, some of you may never have seen that page! And since I never discussed the Haiku Basics blog tag within New to Haiku posts, you may have missed it, and you might have had a hard time locating introductory material here.
I thought I would break down the majority of what we have posted so far in Haiku Basics. Most of this content is written by me, unless otherwise noted:
- First Articles for Haiku Beginners
Haiku: A Short Introduction – An Old Pond Comic by Jessica Tremblay
- An Overview of Modern English-Language Haiku
How is Writing Haiku Different From Writing Prose Poetry?
Some Thoughts on Line and Syllable Count in English-Language Haiku
- Writing English-Language Haiku
The Elements and Craft of Haiku by Terri L. French
Suggestions for Creating Haiku Poetry in English by James W. Hackett
- Writing English-Language Haiku: Narrowing the Focus (Deeper Dives)
Adjectives and Adverbs in Haiku
An Introduction to Two-Line Haiku
Can You Write Haiku in the Past Tense?
Imagery in Haiku with Joshua Gage
Whiptail Monoku Series (A series of three posts from Robin Smith and Kat Lehmann on how to read, write, and appreciate one-line haiku.)
- Haiku Terminology
Moments in Haiku (Thoughts on the “haiku moment” and the “aha moment”)
Negative Space––Some Thoughts on Ma
- Editing Haiku
Ten Tips for Polishing Your Haiku (or How to Edit Your Haiku, Part 2)
Adventures in Editing – at the barre
Opening Doors: In Praise of the Thesaurus by Brad Bennett
Polishing Our Intent––A Collaborative Essay on Revising Haiku by the Noodle Bowl Haiku Group
- Publishing Haiku
Preparing Your First Submission
Tips for Entering Haiku Contests
What to do After Your First Haiku Publication
What to do After Your Second (or Tenth!) Haiku Publication
Going Wide: Submitting Haiku in the General Poetry World by Kat Lehmann
- Presenting Haiku
Eleven Tips for Giving a Haiku Reading from Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton
- The Haiku Community and You
Regional Meetings and Haiku Conferences
How to Prepare for a Haiku Conference
Twitter and the Haiku Poet (This material is dated, but I can vouch for active haiku communities on Bluesky and Instagram. Bluesky, in particular, is structured similarly to Twitter.)
- Advice for Tough Days
I hope this summary helps you locate a New to Haiku post that you may have missed. What other topics should we cover in Haiku Basics? Let me know in the comments!
(I have a long-term goal of going through older posts and pages on THF and tagging them with Haiku Basics tags. For example, Contemporary Haiku is not a New to Haiku page, but I think it fits nicely with the Haiku Basics collection. If reading and identifying introductory content on the THF website is a project that might interest you, let me know! I could use the help.)
My thanks to Kat Lehmann for suggesting this topic and for her helpful input.
THF strives to maintain a safe and friendly environment for our readers and site participants. Participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior of all parties. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, at any time.
If you see something you feel may violate our Code of Conduct, please report it to the appropriate moderator or the President here.
Comments (5)
Comments are closed.
Speaking as someone who is relatively new to haiku — this is fantastic! After a year of (as Alan Summers says) hitting and missing, writing a lot of not-quite-right haiku, I appreciate this guidance for reviewing the basics. I’ve read a lot of these posts chronologically, but think that having them grouped this way will make them more meaningful. Thank you!
This might be of interest, as in my New To Haiku feature I showed the process of one haiku.
When we are just starting out, at least many of us, we either quickly write a haiku that is hit or miss, often ‘miss’ or go through multiple versions, some of which are “okay”. But the point is to go beyond an ‘okay’ haiku and aspire for a better version:
https://thehaikufoundation.org/new-to-haiku-advice-for-beginners-alan-summers/
Thanks, Alan!
Thank you, Julie! I will be giving a presentation in October to a roomful of writers and poets, most of whom know little to nothing about contemporary English-language haiku. This list will come in very handy.
Thanks, Sarah! I’m happy to know that. :)