At seventeen syllables, haiku is the shortest poem in world literature. It is now also the most popular form of poetry in the world, written in nearly every language. And yet, as haiku has spread internationally, one of the most important aspects of the tradition has largely been lost—the community of poets.

In Europe and the United States, haiku is often regarded as the domain of literary elites, but this is not the case in Japan, where haiku is deeply rooted in communal activity. Millions of amateur Japanese poets belong to haiku groups (clubs, really), which are sponsored by different “schools” of haiku, each with its own magazine. Most daily and weekly newspapers carry a haiku column featuring poems submitted by their subscribers, sometimes on the front page.

To help bring back this social dimension, we are inviting our readers to participate in the monthly Tricycle Haiku Challenge. Each month, moderator Clark Strand will select three poems to be published online, one of which will appear with a brief commentary. Each quarter, one of these poems also will appear in the print magazine alongside an extended commentary. In this way, we can begin to follow the seasons together—spring, summer, fall, and winter—and share the joy of haiku together as a community. 

Requirements:

Anyone can submit haiku to the monthly challenge using the form below. To be considered for publication, your haiku must: 

1. Be written in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables:
   Getting the syllables of a haiku to sit naturally inside of its seventeen-syllable form is the primary challenge. Each haiku is a word problem in search of a satisfying seventeen-syllable solution. 
2. Contain the “season word” assigned for that month:
   A haiku isn’t only a word problem. To the seventeen syllables the poet must add a turn of thought that results in more than seventeen syllables of meaning—along with a word that refers to one of the four seasons. How the poet uses “season words” like autumn sun or dew will typically determine the effectiveness of the poem.

Part of the reason haiku appeals to so many people is that its rules are simple and easy to follow, yet it can take a lifetime to master them. Ten million people currently write haiku in Japanese. There is no reason why millions can’t write haiku in English, too, provided they agree on the basics. The turn of thought you add to that simple formula of 5-7-5 syllables with a season word is entirely up to you.

Submissions close on the last day of the month at 11:59 pm ET, and the results will be posted the week after. Monthly submissions are anonymized and the winning poems are selected in a blind process.

To learn more about the history and principles of haiku, check out Clark Strand’s online course with Tricycle, “Learn to Write Haiku: Mastering the Ancient Art of Serious Play.”

This Month’s Season Word:

Submit as many haiku as you please using the submission form below. Just be sure to include this month’s season word. 

Summer season word: “Perseids”

perseid shower
maybe the dark does require
an extra dipper

Submit as many haiku as you please on the season word “Perseids.” Your poems must be written in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively, and should focus on a single moment of time happening now.

Be straightforward in your description and try to limit your subject matter. Haiku are nearly always better when they don’t have too many ideas or images. So make your focus the season word* and try to stay close to that.

*REMEMBER: To qualify for the challenge, your haiku must be written in 5-7-5 syllables and include the word “Perseids.”

Haiku Tip: Learn What to Say When Someone Tells You, “That’s Not a Haiku!”

Those who submit Formal Haiku to the English language specialty magazines (i.e., those devoted to haiku and related forms) are often told by the editors of those magazines, “That’s not a haiku!” Sometimes an editor will suggest a revision, removing up to half of the poem’s 17 syllables to get something shorter. In the process, they will often also remove the season word.

How did it come to this? The answer could fill a book. But the long and short of it (pun intended) is this: If you regard haiku as a poetic form, you can agree with others about what a haiku is and turn your attention to writing good poetry in that form. If you regard haiku as a free verse poem, the spirit or techniques of which are its defining feature, you will be stuck arguing endlessly about what a haiku “is” or “is not.” English language haiku poets have wasted over a century doing exactly that. Like the sonnet, the haiku form is a vessel to be filled with whatever the poet has to say. That is how it functions in Japanese literature and how Japanese poets have always understood it. If we render our thoughts in 5-7-5 syllables and manage to include a season word, we have written a haiku. What remains to decide is whether what we have said is worth saying and how well we have said it—not whether our poem is a haiku or not.

And so, the next time a haiku specialist tells you that your poem is “not a haiku,” ask them to tell you what a haiku is. But don’t let them go on and on. If they can’t explain it simply, in a way that a six-year-old could understand, they will never get there. You’d be better off starting a magazine of your own.

A note on the Perseids: About this spectacular annual event, season word editor Becka Chester writes: “Considered the best meteor show of the year by NASA, the Perseids begin in mid-July and peak in mid-August. Prime time for their viewing is just before dawn, with scattered sightings occurring from 10 pm onward. It is best to view them far from bright city lights.

“The showers occur yearly as the Earth passes through a cloud of dust particles from a comet called 109P/Swift-Tuttle. The comet’s particles become heated as they hit our atmosphere and appear as bright streaks across the heavens.

“The Perseid shower was named because the meteors seemed to originate from the constellation Perseus.”

Note that this year the Perseids will peak just before dawn on Wednesday, August 13th , when you can view up to 100 meteors per hour under optimal conditions.

June’s Winning Poem: 

Summer season word: “Summer Lake”

the heads of swimmers
the only things not swallowed
by the summer lake

— Marcia Burton

You can find the honorable mentions, additional commentary, and June’s haiku tips here. 

Previous Winners

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Submission Form