Each April, I celebrate National Poetry Month by sharing with you all some of what I love about poetry — through 30 poems from 30 poets delivered to your inboxes over 30 days.
Email open rates for the past twelve(!) Aprils tell me that more people read this April 1 message than any other message I’ll send out all month (alas, no matter how good my subject lines are) — so if you’re going to read only one poem this month, let’s make it a love poem:
Haiku [for you]
love between us is
speech and breath. loving you is
a long river running.
■
love between us is
speech and breath. loving you is
a long river running.
■
Sonia Sanchez’s “Haiku [for you]” from her 1998 collection Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums is somewhat unusual in that haiku is a poetic form that is not typically about love. You may have learned in grade school that haiku is a very old Japanese poetic form that follows a 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable format. But did you know the logo of National Haiku Writing Month is actually a 5-7-5 with a big red X over it? For those fluent in Japanese, 5-7-5 is a problematic English approximation of what is actually going on in Japanese haiku. If you adore 5-7-5 (I’m looking at you, Jeremy Bratt), this is not to say that you can’t write a haiku in English in 5-7-5; it’s just that 5-7-5 is not the essence of what makes a haiku a haiku.
What is arguably more important than the syllable count or line breaks in a haiku is that it captures one tableau-like image or idea, often invoking nature in a particular season or element of time, and containing a moment of pivot or juxtaposition. If you’d like to really get into the nitty gritty, you can read more about the haiku form here.
Do you have a favorite haiku or other poem you’d like to see featured? Send it my way! And once again, Happy National Poetry Month!
— Ellen
The haiku form has previously been featured for Poem-A-Day April 24, 2018, Poem-A-Day April 13, 2015, and Poem-A-Day April 29, 2011 (which includes the shirt I am wearing today!).
If you’re a fan of short, also check out this selection of previously featured poems shorter than haiku.