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It is wonderful to find so many students willing to try their hand at writing haiku. As mentioned in the guidelines provided for the competition, a haiku attempts to capture a moment when you have noticed something in the world around you, something which is somehow unusual, surprising or which makes you look at something differently. A good way to prepare for writing a haiku is to go for a walk in a park, along a river or to a beach and to look and listen carefully.
The winning haiku captures a moment well. It begins with a fragment: one line which sets the scene (“the snow falls softly”). Then follows a two line phrase which describes something remarkable, the one green leaf, a sign of life amidst the whiteness of the snow. The second place getter has also noticed something special, the vibrant colours of the butterflies. The first line, the fragment, alerts the reader to the subject of the haiku (“Butterflies in flight”) and the next two lines (the phrase) reveal what was special. This writer has used a very interesting technique to help the reader understand the experience. The word “ripple” which we would normally associate with water and “the pond” is used to describe the movement of colour as the butterlies pass. The third placed haiku arises from a moment when the writer has looked at the sky on a winter’s night and has seen a link between the movement of the grey clouds and the grey smoke. Again, the first line sets the scene and the second two lines describe what was particular about the scene at that moment.
Congratulations to these three students and to those who were highly commended. Thank you to everyone who entered. I enjoyed reading your haiku. Keep up the good work. Learning to write good haiku takes plenty of practice.
A few points to remember in writing haiku:
Express yourself as simply as possible without telling readers what they already know. If you write that the leaves are falling, you don’t need to say that it is autumn. If you write about “a sandhopper burrowing,” you don’t need to write “in the sand.”
A haiku should not be like one sentence, with each line reading straight into the next. Also it should not be like three separate short sentences. It should have two parts, a one line fragment and a two line phrase. Look at the winning haiku.
A haiku does not need a title. |
