This weekend, after a
harmless conversation about Oprah Winfrey and Lean Cuisine, I got to thinking
about haikus. (If you were a part of the
conversation, you’d totally understand.)
The thing I love about
haikus is their ability to convey a fully-formed and (mostly) coherent thought
in the smallest amount of space. For
those who don’t know, a haiku is a Japanese poetic form consisting of 17
syllables broken up into a pattern of 5-7-5.
I’ve often found that haikus are like hand grenades: deceptively small until you pull the pin and watch the explosion that follows. You’ll rarely find a poem shorter than a
haiku, but when you actually read it, it will leave you wondering at how
something so tiny could say so much and fill your brain with so much awesome.
For writers who find
themselves a bit too wordy, writing a haiku is an excellent way to practice the
art of brevity. Sometimes it’s hard to
stay concise and only say what is absolutely necessary in order to make your
point. With a haiku, it’s nearly
impossible to add unnecessary fluff. As
an added bonus, writing haikus may just stir some story ideas in the process.
