Love haiku is a short poem expressing emotions for someone, associated with Valentine’s Day. Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry, with 17 syllables. English haiku has a 5-7-5 pattern and can convey greater meaning. A love haiku can have a romantic theme and a juxtaposition. Haiku purists argue that love haiku is not a real haiku, but English haiku is flexible.
A love haiku is a short poem that expresses feelings and emotions for someone else. Such poems can be found on cards, magnets and other gifts. They are associated with Valentine’s Day in the West, but can be used or written at any time. Composing a love haiku is one of the many ways a person can use poetry to express inner feelings to someone they love.
Haiku is one of the many forms of Japanese poetry. A witty retort of two sets of 17-syllable lines known as Katauta developed into longer poems such as choka and tanka. These, in turn, led to the renga created by the team. Haiku is a succinct form of tanka and can be combined with prose text to form a haibun.
Traditional Japanese haiku consists of 17 letters when translated into its native hiragana or katakana alphabets. Both alphabets represent the same list of 52 sounds. Additional syllables can be created using two letters or kana. An example is kyu, however, such letters require two letters – ki + yu – to form and, therefore, count as two out of 17 syllables. This means that Japanese haiku contains little information.
English haiku are able to convey greater meaning because English is blessed with more one- and two-syllable words. While a Japanese haiku is written in one line, an English haiku is divided into three lines with five syllables in the first and third lines and seven in the second to give a 5-7-5 pattern. This means that a love haiku must be said in one breath.
A Japanese haiku must contain a kigo or seasonal word and a juxtaposition. One type of juxtaposition commonly used in haiku is a movement and a stillness. These can be translated into a love haiku by having a love kigo instead of a seasonal one and some sort of juxtaposition. It’s possible to have a seasonal kigo while also keeping a romantic theme: “The beauty of cherry blossoms is only fleeting, / Yours is forever.”
Haiku purists might argue that a love haiku is not a real haiku. Haiku should be nature oriented, while senryu are more focused on human weaknesses. A senryu has the same form as a haiku, but does not require a kigo or juxtaposition. English haiku, however, are more flexible than their Japanese counterparts, and the term is used for any poem, even love haiku, that conforms to the basic 5-7-5 syllabic structure.
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