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.

Fall season word: “Red Leaves”

a red maple leaf
fallen vein-side up the wind
has told its fortune

An autumn wind filled the yard and quickly subsided. I went outside and found a red maple leaf upside down on a stone. Its veins resembled the lines of an open palm.   — Clark Strand

Submit as many haiku as you wish that include the autumn season word “red leaves.” 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 “red leaves.”

Haiku Tip: Help to Build a Season Word Anthology!

Some of our Tricycle poets have wondered where I come up with the season words for each month’s haiku challenge. In Japan, poets make use of a saijiki, or “season word almanac,” that includes hundreds (or even thousands) of season words, along with famous haiku that have employed them. Part nature guide, part anthology, a saijiki is the one essential reference book for haiku poets in Japan.

Saijiki come in all sizes. Some are abbreviated, making them portable (a bit like a pocket dictionary). Others are multivolume illustrated encyclopedias that would fill up the greater part of a shelf. One of the best-known was compiled by Kenkichi Yamamoto (1907–1988), the most influential haiku critic of the 20th century. His six-volume saijiki is considered definitive for Japanese poets.

This month we are going to try our hand at one of the most classical themes of haiku: “red leaves.” Here is a modern example, written by Nobel Prize–winning novelist Yukio Mishima when he was only 7 years old:

my younger brother
his tiny palms held open 
like red maples leaves

You have to know that the red leaves Mishima is referring to are usually assumed to be those of a Japanese maple, which are somewhat feathery and delicate. The comparison to a young boy’s palms makes sense when we learn that Mishima’s brother was only 2 years old at the time he wrote the poem.

Here’s another example, this one by Kobayashi Issa (1763–1828):

the gong to announce
visitors at the temple
gobbles up red leaves

And another by Issa, since “red leaves” was one of his favorite season words:

at dawn a keepsake
left for me on the window
a red maple leaf

These are only a few examples, but they give you an idea of what it’s like to read through the poems listed in a saijiki for a particular season word.

This year, at last, we will begin compiling our own season word almanac for haiku in English. The project will be overseen by the editorial board of 17-Haiku in English as part of the “2025 A Year of Haiku” program and will draw from works composed by poets in the various haiku communities I oversee, including this one.

When it is finished, our Annotated Season Word Anthology will be the first volume of its kind ever produced outside of Japan. Because the season words of haiku are shared by poets across the centuries, they make it possible to share a common “nature language,” not only with our contemporaries but with our haiku ancestors and descendants as well.

A note on red leaves: From a biological point of view, the leaves of a tree change colors in the autumn when their chlorophyll breaks down to reveal the presence of yellow or orange “helper chemicals” that were present in the leaves all along. Red leaves result from a different process, as sugars called anthocyanins produce a pigment that combines with chlorophyll to produce different shades of red. Various trees other than maples produce red foliage in autumn, including dogwoods, red oaks, scarlet oaks, and sassafras. Red leaves are inherently ambiguous as a symbol because, while their colors are the most vibrant of the autumn landscape, they are followed by death and a fall.

August’s Winning Poem: 

Spring season word: “Hydrangea”

three jobs, credit maxed,
bills due, and the hydrangeas
are lovely today

— David Bolton

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

Previous Winners

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Submission Form