Haiku are short poems written to a particular pattern. They have three lines and 17 syllables, five on the first line, seven on the second and five on the last line. They don't rhyme.

This week I have been talking and writing about some other things you can keep in mind when you are writing a haiku but to start just write something, anything, the first thing that comes into your head!

Don't worry about counting syllables just yet. Then write another two lines. You can see in the photo how I started a new haiku, and how I changed it until I got what I wanted to say to fit in the haiku pattern.

This is how I started:

I'm bored

I'm stuck at home with no friends to play with

I don't know what to do.

When I looked back at what I'd written I could see that I didn't have the right number of syllables and I didn't have any sense of nature in it. Do you remember that I said in my last blog that traditionally haiku are about nature and they give a sense of the season? And that even though they are tiny poems classic haiku also include a change? The poet makes you think about one thing, then another and i think that is what makes these poems exciting. So I edited my poem again:

I'm bored (2 syllables)

I'm stuck at home with no friends (7 syllables - great!)

but the birds are singing. (6 syllables)

I'm pleased to get nature and a 'change' into the poem with the thought of birds singing. But I still need to make line one longer (I can use ideas from my original line three) and the new line three needs to be one syllable shorter:

I'm bored, I don't know what to do (8 syllables)

I'm stuck at home with no friends (7 syllables - great!)

but birds are singing. (5 syllables - great!)

One more change and it's done:

Bored, what can I do? (5 syllables - hurray!)

I'm stuck at home with no friends (7 syllables - great!)

but birds are singing. (5 syllables - great!)

Now have a go yourself. Happy writing!

Haiku Week– Have a Go at a Haiku