Haiku: 俳句, the 5-7-5 Rule and How to Write One

Haiku: 俳句 (haiku), what it is and how to write one

A haiku is a very short Japanese poem of 17 sound units, in three parts of 5, 7 and 5, traditionally with a season word and a pause that sets two images side by side. To write one, notice a small moment, name its season, split the poem in two with a cut, then fit it to 5-7-5 (in Japanese) or to a short, plain English form.

The Japanese word is 俳句 (はいく, haiku, “haiku”), and the dictionary defines it as a 17-mora poem, usually in three lines of 5, 7 and 5 morae. A mora is the unit Japanese poets count. It is not the same as an English syllable, and that gap is the source of most of the confusion about haiku.

Three things make a traditional Japanese haiku:

• A fixed length: 17 sound units, in the pattern 5-7-5.
• A season word: a word that places the poem in spring, summer, autumn, winter or the New Year. It's called a 季語 (きご, kigo, “seasonal word (in haiku)”).
• A cut: a break that splits the poem into two parts that comment on each other. The words that make it are called 切れ字 (きれじ, kireji, “punctuation words in haiku, renga, etc. such as "ya", "kana", "keri", etc.”).

This guide explains the count, shows three famous poems with their readings, and then teaches you to write a haiku in English and in Japanese. If you only want the method, go straight to the section called How to write a haiku in English.

The three rules of haiku

Japanese Wikipedia describes haiku by exactly these three features: the 十七音 (seventeen-sound) form, a season word, and a cut. Together they are the closest thing haiku has to rules.

1. The 5-7-5 form. Seventeen sound units, split into three phrases of 5, 7 and 5. This is the rule everyone knows, and the one most often misunderstood, because the units are Japanese sound units and not English syllables (see the next section).

2. The season word. A haiku is rooted in a time of year, and the season word does that in one or two words: a frog means spring, a persimmon means autumn. Some modern Japanese poets write haiku with no season word, and the dictionary has a word for that too, 無季 (むき, muki, “(haiku) lacking seasonal references”), but the traditional form has one.

3. The cut. A haiku is rarely one smooth sentence. It usually has a break, so that the poem is two things set next to each other, and the reader feels the link between them.

English-language haiku is looser. The Haiku Society of America, one of the main English-language haiku groups, currently defines a haiku as "a short poem that uses imagistic language to convey the essence of an experience of nature or the season intuitively linked to the human condition in which a cut suggests a meaningful relationship between two or more images, perceptions, or ideas". Its definition says nothing about 17 syllables. The cut and the images are what count.

5-7-5: counting on, not English syllables

In Japanese, the 5, 7 and 5 are counted in 音 (おん, on, “(speech) sound”), sound units also called morae and read on. A mora is a beat of time. The word is often translated as "syllable", but the match is only rough. Haiku, for example, is two English syllables (hai-ku) but three on (ha-i-ku).

The counting rule is simple once you read the poem in kana. Count each kana as one on. The only kana you don't count alone are the small ゃ, ゅ and ょ, which join the kana before them (きょ is one on). So ん, the small っ and the extra kana of a long vowel (とう, or ー in katakana) each count as one. Wikipedia's article on the mora gives these rules, and uses Tōkyō (とうきょう) as its example of four morae.

You can count the three famous poems in the next section the same way. The persimmon poem is the instructive one: ほうりゅうじ is five kana plus a small kana, so six characters, but only five on.

Why 17 on is not 17 syllables

Because a Japanese on is usually shorter than an English syllable. The Haiku Society of America's 2004 definitions note that some translators have found that about 12 syllables in English approximates the duration of 17 Japanese on.

That's why many English-language writers have moved away from 5-7-5. The haiku scholar Charles Trumbull has called the school version of haiku, three lines of five, seven and five syllables, "an invidious joke" (as quoted on English Wikipedia). In a comment on The Haiku Foundation's Haiku Maven column, the poet Michael Dylan Welch says that if 5-7-5 is the only target a poem hits, it fails to be a haiku. The mistake is to think the count is the only target.

Famous haiku in Japanese, with readings and meanings

Here are three well-known haiku by three different poets. The Japanese and the kana readings come from Japanese Wikipedia, as does the romaji for the Buson poem. The other romaji, and the Buson kana, are ours, made from the readings. The translations are our own plain translations of the meaning, not published literary translations.

Two of the poems use older kana spellings, as the source prints them. The frog poem's かわづ is read kawazu, and the persimmon poem's くへば is read kueba, with へ read e. Each phrase has the count of 5, 7 and 5.

The frog poem (Bashō)

古池や蛙飛びこむ水の音 is often named as the most famous haiku of all. Matsuo Bashō wrote it in 1686 at his hut in Fukagawa, and it appeared in a collection called 蛙合 (Kawazu-awase). It has a season word, the frog (蛙, the poetic word for frog), which tells you it is spring, and a cut: the や after 古池 (ふるいけ, furuike, “old pool”).

The story goes that Bashō's pupil Kikaku suggested a more showy opening, 山吹や (yamabuki ya, with the flower 山吹 (やまぶき, yamabuki, “kerria (Kerria japonica)”)), and Bashō chose the plainer 古池や instead. The dictionary spells the frog かわず, with the same sound as the poem's かわづ.

The rape-blossom poem (Buson)

菜の花や月は東に日は西に is a poem about scale: a field of yellow flowers, the moon on one horizon and the sun on the other. The first phrase ends in や, the cut, and the rest is one wide view.

The persimmon poem (Shiki)

柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺 was first published in 1895, and its season word is the persimmon, an autumn word. In his essay くだもの (1901), Shiki says that he was staying in Nara and heard the bell of Tōdai-ji while eating persimmons at his lodging. Japanese Wikipedia adds that the poem is considered not a record of an actual event but a kind of fiction about Hōryū-ji, and that くへば only states the fact of eating, with no cause and effect between the persimmon and the bell. The poem breaks before the temple's name, which comes as a separate last beat.

The same page notes that Shiki may have been influenced by Natsume Sōseki's haiku 鐘つけば銀杏散るなり建長寺 ("Kenchō-ji" is a temple in Kamakura).

The season word: 季語 (kigo)

The kigo is the quickest way a haiku tells you when it takes place. Modern lists of season words sort them into five seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter and the New Year. The New Year counts as its own season, and Japanese Wikipedia says this fifth season dates from the Meiji period, after Japan adopted the Western calendar.

The lists themselves are called 歳時記 (さいじき, saijiki, “almanac of seasonal words (for haiku poets)”). Here are some season words, with the season each belongs to in haiku:

Japanese Wikipedia lists 七夕 as an autumn season word and notes that in the traditional Chinese calendar the seventh month is the first month of autumn. So a season word doesn't always match the season outside your window.

Two more things are worth knowing. First, no official body certifies season words: the tradition itself decides what is accepted. Second, a season word is a hint, not a label. You don't write "it is spring". You write the frog and let the reader feel it.

The cutting word: 切れ字 (kireji)

The cut is what separates a haiku from a short sentence. In Japanese it's often a small word placed at the end of a phrase. The three most common are や, かな and けり, and the dictionary describes them as punctuation words in haiku, renga and similar forms.

• や emphasises what comes before it and makes a pause, so that the poem splits into two parts that invite the reader to find the link.
• かな adds emphasis or wonder, and usually comes at the very end.
• けり is an exclamatory ending that points to something past.

Wikipedia's article on kireji says that a cutting word in the middle of a verse divides it into two thoughts, and one at the end draws the reader back to the start. The cut doesn't always need a cutting word: Japanese Wikipedia notes that it can also come from a natural break in meaning.

English has no direct equivalent. English-language haiku usually does the job with punctuation, such as a dash or an ellipsis, with a line break, or with no mark at all. That's why "a cut" is better advice for an English writer than "a cutting word".

How to write a haiku in English

Write what you notice, in plain words, in a few short lines. You can use 5-7-5 if you like, but it's a choice and not a rule. Here's a method that follows the ideas above.

1. Start from a moment, not an idea. Something you saw, heard or felt today: frost on a gate, a bus pulling away, the smell of rain. The Haiku Society of America's definition talks about "an experience of nature or the season", and that's a good place to begin.
2. Name two things. A haiku works by setting two images next to each other. Pick one detail that sets the scene and one that surprises or answers it.
3. Add a season. A season word can be as simple as frost, blossom or cicadas. Many English writers include one, but it's not required, and the Haiku Society of America's current definition doesn't insist on it.
4. Make the cut. Put a dash, a full stop or a line break between the two parts. English has no kireji, so punctuation and line breaks do the work.
5. Prefer the present tense. In a Haiku Foundation essay, Keith Evetts says editors often prefer it for "freshness and immediacy", while stressing that haiku don't have to be in the present.
6. Keep the words plain. Show the thing and let the reader do the rest.
7. Count, then cut. If you want 5-7-5, count syllables, and cut words from any line that runs over.

A draft, and what to do with it

A first draft usually explains too much: "It was a cold winter morning and I felt tired waiting for the bus." It names the season, states the feeling, and uses the past tense. Keep only what you could photograph:

Frosted timetable. I rub a patch with my thumb. The bus not yet here.

This is our own example, in 5-7-5. It has a season word (frost, which says winter), two images (the frost on the timetable and the bus that has not come), a break after the first line, and no stated feeling. The waiting says the rest. Cut it to "frosted timetable: / I rub a patch / bus not yet here" and it's a shorter English haiku, which is also fine.

Common mistakes

• Explaining the feeling. "Sad", "peaceful" and "lonely" tell the reader what to feel. An image lets them feel it.
• Padding to reach the count. Filler words to reach 17 syllables make the poem weaker. Drop the count before you drop the image.
• One image only. A haiku with a single image and no cut reads like a caption.
• Forcing rhyme. Rhyme in English tends to turn a haiku into a jingle.

How long should a haiku poem be?

In Japanese, 17 on. In English, there is no official length. The Haiku Society of America's 1973 committee wrote that a haiku "usually consists of seventeen" syllables, but noted that it was more and more common to use fewer. Contemporary English haiku often uses shorter, more flexible forms.

How to write a haiku in Japanese

Writing a haiku in Japanese is a good test of your kana, because you count the on one by one.

1. Pick a season word. Look one up in a 歳時記 (saijiki), or choose one from the table above.
2. Write the poem in hiragana first. That lets you count on without kanji getting in the way. If you can't yet read hiragana, What is Hiragana? is the place to start, and the あ page shows how a single character is written and sounds.
3. Count each on. Each kana is one on, including ん, the small っ and the extra kana of a long vowel. A small ゃ, ゅ or ょ doesn't count on its own.
4. Aim for 5, 7 and 5. A poem with an extra on or two is a 字余り, which skilled poets use on purpose, but a first poem is easier if you hit the count.
5. Add a cut. Put や after the thing you want to stress, as in the frog poem and the rape-blossom poem, or end with かな. Or let the meaning break naturally.
6. Turn some of it into kanji. If a word is usually written in kanji, you can use it. The count stays the same, because you count the reading and not the characters. What is Kanji? explains how kanji work.

Haiku are often shared in groups: a 句会 (くかい, kukai, “gathering of haiku poets”) is a meeting where poets read and discuss each other's poems. The comic cousin 川柳 (senryū) also has 17 on, but the Haiku Society of America describes it as a poem about the foibles of human nature, usually humorous or satirical, and Japanese Wikipedia notes that it has no season word and no cut.

The 5-7-5 rule isn't the whole story, even in Japan. Early in the twentieth century poets such as Ogiwara Seisensui, Taneda Santōka and Ozaki Hōsai wrote 自由律俳句 (jiyūritsu haiku), free-form haiku with no fixed count.

For where poetry fits into a study plan, see How to Learn Japanese: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners.

Why are haiku 17 syllables? The 発句 and the renga

Haiku came from the opening verse of a longer game of linked poems, and that verse already had 17 sound units. A poem of that kind was called a 連歌 (れんが, renga, “renga (early Japanese poetry form)”), a chain of verses written by several people. In a renga the verses alternated between 5-7-5 and 7-7. The first verse, the 発句 (hokku), was in 5-7-5. It had to have a season word and a cut.

From the 1500s a playful style called 俳諧 (はいかい, haikai, “haikai no renga (humorous, often vulgar style of renga which emerged in the 16th century)”) spread, and its opening verse became a poem in its own right. In 1893 the poet and critic Masaoka Shiki argued that the opening verse was literature but the linked verse around it was not. After that the word 俳句 came into general use. In the Edo period the poem had been called 十七文字 (seventeen characters), and the standalone hokku was renamed haiku in the Meiji period.

So the answer to "why 17?" is that haiku is the first verse of a 5-7-5-and-7-7 chain, freed from the chain. Why Japanese verse settled on 5 and 7 in the first place is a separate question, and this guide doesn't guess at it.

Can a haiku be 6-8-6?

In Japanese, a poem with extra on is called 字余り (jiamari). Japanese Wikipedia says it is generally discouraged unless it has a purpose, because one extra on loosens the rhythm. Skilled poets use it deliberately, for strong emotion, and a poem with too few on is called 字足らず (jitarazu). A 6-8-6 poem would be a long jiamari throughout, not a standard haiku.

The four masters: Bashō, Buson, Issa and Shiki

Four names recur in every history of haiku, with dates from Japanese Wikipedia. English Wikipedia's article on haiku names the same four.

• Matsuo Bashō (1644 to 1694) was born in Iga Province, in what is now Mie Prefecture. Japanese Wikipedia credits him with turning haikai from entertainment into serious literature. In 1689 he made the journey recorded in his travel diary Oku no Hosomichi, about five months and, by the figure usually given, about 2,400 kilometres through the north of Japan.
• Yosa Buson (1716 to 1784) was both a painter and a poet, born near what is now Osaka. English-language sources often give his years as 1716 to 1783. He wrote the rape-blossom poem above.
• Kobayashi Issa (1763 to 1828; some English sources say 1827) was born in Shinano Province (today Nagano Prefecture). He wrote about small creatures and children, such as 我と来て遊べや親のない雀 (Ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume), which says roughly "come and play with me, sparrow with no parents" (our translation). Issa lost his mother as a child, and the verse is read in that light.
• Masaoka Shiki (1867 to 1902) was born in Matsuyama (Ehime Prefecture) and died at 34 of tuberculosis. He urged poets to write from direct observation (the idea called 写生 (しゃせい, shasei, “sketching”)), criticised the stale, formulaic poems of his day, valued Bashō and brought Buson back to notice.

All four wrote what we now call haiku, but the word haiku came into general use only after Shiki's reforms in the 1890s. In Bashō's, Buson's and Issa's time, the standalone verse was called hokku.

Questions about haiku

What are the three rules of haiku?

The three rules of a traditional haiku are a 5-7-5 form of 17 sound units, a season word, and a cut. In English, the Haiku Society of America defines haiku by its imagistic language, a link to nature or the season, and a cut, and doesn't require a syllable count.

What are the three rules of a haiku poem?

They are the same three: 17 sound units in 5-7-5, a season word and a cut. A good haiku also shows an image and leaves the feeling unsaid.

What is the most famous haiku?

The most famous haiku is usually said to be Matsuo Bashō's 古池や蛙飛びこむ水の音 (Furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto), "an old pond: a frog jumps in, the sound of water" (our plain translation). He wrote it in 1686. No official ranking exists, so "most famous" is a matter of common usage and not a measured fact.

What is an example of a haiku?

An example of a haiku in English is this one, written for this guide: "Frosted timetable. / I rub a patch with my thumb. / The bus not yet here." It has 5-7-5 syllables, a winter season word and a break after the first line. A Japanese example is Masaoka Shiki's 柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺 (Kaki kueba kane ga naru nari Hōryū-ji), "I eat a persimmon, and a bell rings: Hōryū-ji" (our plain translation), which has 17 on and an autumn season word.

Are haikus 3:5:3 or 5:7:5?

Traditional Japanese haiku are 5-7-5, counted in on, not 3-5-3. Some English-language poets suggest a shorter pattern of about 3-5-3, because 17 on last about as long as 12 English syllables, but it's a suggestion and not a rule (a Haiku Oz article makes this point, adding that haiku is about much more than syllable counting).

Can a haiku be 6 8 6?

Not in traditional Japanese haiku, where 6-8-6 would be a long 字余り (extra on), generally discouraged, but in English it is allowed because there is no fixed count. If you want a traditional haiku, stay on 5-7-5.

Why are haiku 17 syllables?

Haiku are 17 sound units, called on, and not syllables, because the poem began as the opening verse of a linked-verse chain written in 5-7-5. Seventeen Japanese on are roughly 12 English syllables long, so English writers who use 17 syllables are copying the number and not the length.

How do you write a 5 7 5 haiku?

To write a 5-7-5 haiku, put a short moment into three lines of five, seven and five sounds. In English, count syllables. In Japanese, count on: each kana is one, including っ, ん and the extra kana of a long vowel, and a small ゃ, ゅ or ょ doesn't count. Add a season word and a cut.

How long should a haiku poem be?

A haiku should be 17 on in Japanese, in three parts of 5, 7 and 5. In English, it's usually shorter than 17 syllables. The length is a guide, and the image and the cut matter more.

Sources

• Readings and meanings: JMdict (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), including its definitions of 俳句, 季語, 切れ字, 発句, 字余り, 歳時記 and 川柳.
• The three features, the 十七音 form, 川柳 compared with 俳句, and the 1893 reform: Japanese Wikipedia, 俳句, 発句 and 字余り.
• Season words, the five seasons and the Meiji calendar change: Japanese Wikipedia, 季語. Tanabata as an autumn word: Japanese Wikipedia, 七夕.
• The three poems: Japanese Wikipedia, 古池や蛙飛びこむ水の音 and 柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺, and the Buson poem and its romaji in 与謝蕪村. The translations are our own plain translations.
• The poets and their dates: Japanese Wikipedia, 松尾芭蕉, 与謝蕪村, 小林一茶 and 正岡子規; English Wikipedia, Haiku.
• Counting on, long vowels, ん, the small っ and small kana: Wikipedia, Mora (linguistics).
• Cutting words: Wikipedia, Kireji. Renga, the hokku and the renaming: Wikipedia, Renga.
• Free-form haiku: Japanese Wikipedia, 自由律俳句.
• The 12-syllable note, the 1973 committee, senryū and the current definition: Haiku Society of America, Definitions (2004) and current definitions Facts on this page last checked on 2026-10-01..
• English-language haiku and the 5-7-5 debate: Wikipedia, Haiku in English; The Haiku Foundation, Haiku Maven: The Trouble with Counting Syllables (the Welch comment); 3-5-3 and syllable counting (Haiku Oz).
• The present tense in English haiku: The Haiku Foundation, Moon and Finger 11: the past, part 3.
• Reviewed independently; the points about the kana and romaji of the poems, the season words 花 and 月, the persimmon poem's account, and the naming of hokku and haiku are waiting for a native speaker's check.