An introduction to Haiku #3 - Syllables

What is a haiku?

We already covered the nature theme and the rhyming problem. We can say that, as a rule, haiku is nature-based poetry. Also, we can say that rhymes are not a relevant factor for defining what is and what isn’t a haiku.

There is another attribute commonly used to define haiku: the 5-7-5 syllable structure.

We return to the problem of English translations. Just like rhymes, the 5-7-5 syllable structure is not a rule and does not define what is haiku, at least according to the Japanese tradition and the most famous haikuists.

If you see someone claiming that traditional haiku follow this 5-7-5 syllable pattern, just check Matsuo Basho, and see in Japanese how many haiku would fall under this strict rule. The same can be said about all great Japanese masters of haiku.

You see, in Japanese you wouldn’t find a single one. They don’t count syllables as we do in the English language. They don’t even write as we do, rather using a combination of Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana.

What most people think of when they claim that traditional haiku follows a 5-7-5 syllable pattern is the sounds of Japanese language. However, this doesn’t equate at all with the English way of counting syllables.

There is an easy way to distinguish these two. In Brazilian Portuguese they say that there are two types of syllables: the grammatical syllable, which is the equivalent of the English syllable; and the poetic syllable, which is the distribution of sounds, and resembles more the Japanese patterns.

If you consider poetic syllables, maybe you could claim that traditional haiku often presents the 5-7-5 structure. That is not, however, a rule for haiku. Never was.

From the three criteria we have studied so far, you can see a pattern emerging: the great haikuists were never worried about form, apart from an undefined brevity which, as we shall still discuss, was essential to properly grasp the purpose of haiku.

The content of haiku is what matters.