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 dandelion 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.

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.

Spring season word: “roof leak”

the roof is leaking
the sun is shining    this house
is a box a rain

Submit as many haiku as you wish that include the spring season word “roof leak.” 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 words “roof leak.”

Haiku Tip: The Anatomy of an Allusion

One of the most underutilized techniques in English language haiku is allusion: the use of an indirect reference to history, music, art, or another work of literature to give additional depth to a poem. Allusion is especially important in haiku, where our words often have to do double duty to achieve a satisfying turn of thought.

I tried for decades to write a haiku about my favorite Grateful Dead song, but I could never figure out what to do with the words “Box of Rain.” Then, one March a few years ago, right at the tail end of a torrential rainstorm in the Catskills, our roof began to leak badly from several places at once.

The opening words of the song came back to me just as the sun was coming out:

Look out of any window
Any morning, any evening, any day
Maybe the sun is shining
Birds are winging or rain is falling from a heavy sky

The song debuted on The Dead’s 1970 album American Beauty as a collaboration between bassist-singer Phil Lesh and lyricist Robert Hunter. Lesh wanted a song to sing to his father as he lay dying of cancer. He composed “Box of Rain” on the way to and from the nursing home, complete with vocal melody, but without any lyrics. Hunter listened to Lesh’s scat-style singing and added the words as a kind of “translation” of those sounds.

The meaning of the song—and especially its title—was debated by Grateful Dead fans for decades. Finally, in 1996, Roberts revealed in an email interview:

By “box of rain,” I meant the world we live on, but “ball” of rain didn’t have the right ring to my ear, so box it became….

I’d had a hunch about that for years. What else could it be? But Roberts was right. “Ball of rain” didn’t have the right ring to it, so he made it a “box” instead. Such a beautiful way of personalizing the sorrow of a whole planet by bringing it down to size. 

That was how I came up with the line “this house is a box of rain.” I wanted readers to hear that bittersweet song about Lesh losing his father playing like a soundtrack behind the syllables of the poem.

A note on roof leaks: In Haiku World, William J. Higginson observes, “Roofs—especially thatched roofs, still not uncommon in Japan and parts of Europe—often suffer damage from winter freezes, causing leaks with the thaws of spring.” But even with the best modern building materials, we can’t always keep out the rain. Especially as a house gets older, leaks are a fact of life. 

January’s Winning Poem: 

Winter Season Word: North Wind

When I was seven
I wanted to be a horse.
My name was North Wind.

— Jill Johnson

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

Previous Winners

♦

Submission Form