this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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A haiku is a traditional Japanese style of poetry that consists of three lines of specific lengths and uses a seasonal reference to describe a feeling.
They're popular on the internet because they're perceived as easy to write, being short with few rules. Sadly they don't make a lot of sense in English, because English doesn't really do syllables of uniform length and stress like Japanese has, so the effect is mostly lost.
When people say "this is a haiku", they mean the syllable counts line up. They're not saying "this is poetry".
This is such a helpful explanation, thank you. I lived in Japan for a few years and picked up a bit of language that is lost on me over two decades but it’s the first time it has ever ‘clicked’ for me why I would get so confused trying to make sense of them. Thank you so much. I don’t think I’ll ever appreciate haiku’s in English the way so many others do, and I don’t need to for them to enjoy them. Just really wanted to respond and let you know I really appreciate you taking the time to help me understand the confusion I had a bit more than I did and maybe even feel a little less lost for always feeling confused about something so inconsequential.