A Haiku is a Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons.
Well, that said, heres the rules:
1) The Haiku must be original (no plagarizing)! 2) It must fit the weeks theme 3) It must be submitted before the deadline 4) It must be submitted for the contest (no using works previously written) 5) One Submission per user 6) The Same User cannot win twice in a row (but there welcome to submit!)
Hopefully oneday the winner could get a merit...
The Deadline will always be a Wednsday, so the deadline for the first theme will be Wednsday, September 2. The theme is The Pond
A haiku is a non-rhymed verse genre. In Japanese, haiku has five syllables in the first part, seven in the second, and five again in the last part (they count sounds, not strictly syllables, however, and also write in a single vertical line, but we use three horizontal lines in English).
Haiku in Japanese is written in a single vertical line with seventeen sound units or mora (not strictly the same as syllables)
Outside Japan, most practiced haiku writers write about 10 to 14 syllables to approximate the brevity of a Japanese haiku, which is sometimes described as a one-breath poem.
Pazx: If this were a real English haiku contest, we wouldn't be caring about the syllables, we'd just be caring about how short, concise, and poignant everything is. Considering that it's not a very easy thing to do without some grasp of Eastern poetry, might as well just stick to the syllables to create an even playing field for everyone.
I was not aware, before I made my haiku, that it was required that I stay with the 5-7-5 syllable lines. I knew that it was how it was usually done, but I thought that only 17 syllables were required, and that the syllables-per-line amount could be interchanged between seven and five.
that's not what the contest states though...the contest states that
"A Haiku is a Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons."
not anything else...don't go searching for something to bend the rules...
As it is today, technicalities relative to Haikus are different from region to region, and from tongue to tongue and that's the reason why we have strict rules, as previously stated. That way, we make the judging easier and less subjective...In fact, ''more impartial'' would be the appropriate term. I'm sorry, but that's how it is and since the contest's been rolling for so long it'd be a shame to twist Maverick's original rules. Not that I'm not open to change but I feel it is easier for everyone that way! Judging will be sometime this week, at a very, very late hour as usual. Until then, happy haikuing.
I wasn't looking to change it and I wasn't trying to bend the rules, I was just stating a fact about a form of Haiku we aren't using. I fully agree with Fallen and keeping the rules as they are.
