A while ago I covered how many syllables a haiku should be. Read that here. Today I want to look at how many lines a haiku should be. 3? 5? 42? Curious?

This was on my mind because recently, @boxcarblue experimented by posting his haiku as one line. I love experiments and it was awesome that he did this!

Let's explore this topic for a little bit. Read on!

Haiku in Japan

In Japanese, a haiku is usually printed on a single line. Because of the syllabic nature of Japanese, we can divide it much easier as we read than we can in English. This is aided by special words called kireji ("Cutting words") that also help divide up the poem for us. These special words are especially important for gendai haiku, or haiku that don't follow a 5-7-5 count. And yes, there are plenty of haiku in Japan that don't follow the 5-7-5 structure.

In English we can't really divide up the poem visually or audibly as easily, making the line breaks somewhat more important.

Early Translations in English

Early translations in English mimicked the single line approach. Some later translators wrote two line translations: one line would be before the cutting word and one like after. This was kind of nice.

Here is an example of the two-line approach from Asataro Miyamori. He took Ryokan's haiku 盗人にとりのされし窓の月 (nusubito ni torinokosareshi mado no tsuki) which he translated as:

The moon at my window is left
Unspoken by the thief

(For comparison, I translated it into three lines here)

Later, a handful of translators began writing the English versions in three lines to mimic the three distinct phrases heard in Japanese when using the traditional 5-7-5 format. The most influential of these was probably R.H. Blyth, an Englishman who taught English in Japan and wrote several books introducing haiku and Zen to the West. It was Blyth who the Beat poets latched onto and who Alan Watts preferred. The combined popularity of the Beats and Watts probably had much to do both with Blyth's fame and with the popularity of writing haiku in three lines.

However, there were those who rebelled against this format. One, Peter Beilenson, published his translations as four lines. He also wrote the haiku in all caps, something that is less jarring in print than it is on the Internet WHERE WE TAKE IT FOR SCREAMING!

Here is an example of his style (minus the all caps), translating this haiku 年とらぬつもりなりしが鐘の鳴る(toshi toranu tsumori narishi ga kane no naru) from Jokun:

Ah! I intended
      Never never
      to grow old...
Listen: New Year's bell!

(Again, for comparison, I translated this into three lines here)

There were others who also embraced the four line format, but their number has grown much less over the years.

Modern Haiku in English, Translations and Original

Today almost all haiku in Japan continue to be written on a single line. In English both translations and original haiku almost always use three lines, though you can occasionally find the bold haijin (haiku poet) who doesn't stick to this format.

But does it need to be this way?

In English poetry, line breaks often give us pause. There is a slight hesitation. It makes us break
and consider
what we
just read.
This is exactly why they are used in haiku to mimic the natural break that the Japanese can hear but we can't in English.

So that is to say, a line break can be a useful tool in English poetry. One I think free-verse poets have been taking advantage of for a long time. It's also a tool we might take more advantage of in haiku as well.

English is not Japanese. That may seem obvious, but yet with haiku we are trying to copy a Japanese structure into English, a structure that doesn't fit our language. I covered this a little in my previous essay so I won't go into it too much. Suffice to say I think we should try to copy the feeling of haiku, but we don't necessarily need to be constrained by the format. This means a short verse, as short as possible (aim for one breath), ideally with a reference to nature and some kind of image juxtaposition. But it doesn't mean seventeen syllables or three lines.

How Many Lines Can We Go??

Let's use the example haiku I wrote for my previous essay.

evening
snow coming down
my son is snoring

That's not bad. We have a setting, a feeling (cold), and then cut to an unpleasant but somewhat adorable noise given who it is coming from. The line break after each line gives us a small pause. The change in images between the second and third line gives a slightly bigger pause, one I could help by sticking an em dash or colon at the end of that line, as some do.

What if I rewrote it line so:

evening
snow coming down
my son
is snoring

Well now... that changes it a little. Whether it is a good change or not is a matter of opinion and taste, but the change is there. Now, suddenly, we are shifting images to my son and spend a moment admiring him before—pause again—noticing he is making a rather unpleasant sound.

I think using line breaks is a very powerful tool in poetry, and we might consider using it to its full potential in haiku.

Final Word

There are of course sticklers out there who will insist haiku must be exactly seventeen syllables written in three lines of 5-7-5, and so we risk a small argument from this crowd if we publish haiku differently, but I think the potential artistic rewards far outweigh that risk.

What do you think?

(@owasco, you may be interested in this)

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.