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The haiku is a wonderfully expressive short form of poetry that originated in Japan. Haikus present an image or juxtapose two images that serve to depict a specific moment. You might get a sense from that image or images that the writer is also saying something about their internal, emotional state while they look at the world around them. In that way, haikus can be powerful poems that both place you in a certain environment and help you to reflect on a certain emotion, thought, or memory. Haikus use the juxtaposition of images in the natural world to create insight into our hearts and minds (continue for 5-7-5 haiku examples).

Typically, haikus don’t have more than 17 syllables. You might also be surprised to learn that the traditional idea that haikus have to follow a 5-7-5 syllable pattern isn’t necessarily true.

In this article, we’ll take a look at:

• The number of syllables in a haiku
• How to write a haiku
• 5-7-5 haiku examples
• 7-5-7 haiku examples (Note: this isn’t really a thing! Read on for more.)
• 60 haiku examples that you can use to write your own haikus!

The number of syllables in a haiku 

In English class, we often think about the haiku as having three sets of (most likely) unrhymed lines. Most American schools teach children that haikus have a 5-7-5 syllable format. Here’s how the format works:

• The first line has five syllables,
• the second line has seven syllables,
• and the third line has five syllables.

You might be learning in school that a haiku must follow that format. And while it’s a really easy way to teach students to understand the constrained form of the haiku, it’s not actually true that haikus necessarily have to follow that syllable structure.

Traditional Japanese haikus incorporate lots of different syllable structures. The main idea, however, is that they are brief, discrete images. To keep them short, they have no more than 17 syllables total.

The haiku comes from the original Japanese poetic form the hokku, which traditionally preceded a much longer poem. The hokku was meant to introduce a season, and traditionally, it contained a pair of seasonal images. This served as a way to “set the scene” of the longer poem to come.

List (Continued)

Take our first example from 17th-century haiku master Matsuo Basho:

—

1. The old pond—
   The frog jumps in:
   The sound of water

—

Let’s count out the syllables in each line.

The old pond: 3 syllables
The frog jumps in: 4 syllables
The sound of water: 4 syllables

That means that the syllable pattern in this poem is 3-4-4.

Just in this brief example, you can see that even haiku masters from hundreds of years ago didn’t follow that same 5-7-5 format. Of course, translation from 17th century Japanese to modern English may have manipulated those syllable counts, however, you’ll see in subsequent examples that the counts also change from poem to poem.

What about a second example from the haiku master Matsuo Basho? Let’s look at two other poems:

5-7-5 Haiku Examples (Continued)

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2. as I clap my hands
   with the echoes, it begins to dawn –
   the summer moon

—

This haiku has a 5-9-4 syllable pattern. This gets us a little closer to 5-7-5, so you can see that the shape of the poem might even look familiar. Still, it isn’t constrained to that strict syllable count, and it paints a beautiful, paradoxical image of the beginning of night in summer.

Let’s look at a third historical example from Matsuo Basho before we dive into some 5-7-5 haiku examples:

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3. autumn wind’s
   mouth at the sliding door
   a piercing voice

—

This poem has three syllables in the first line, six syllables in the second line, and four syllables in the last line, for a 3-6-4 syllable count. The haiku is about both feeling and hearing the first piercing wind of autumn, which Basho compares to a voice at the door. Again, we have this really lovely introduction to the start of the season, which would also prepare someone to keep reading a longer poem with that sense of fall in the background.

575 Haiku Examples 

Perhaps you’ve been assigned the task to write a haiku with the 5-7-5 syllable format. You could try making the argument to your teacher that haikus don’t need to have a strict syllable pattern, so long as they do the job of creating insight by comparing two images in the natural world. However, I might not suggest that as a surefire way to do well on an assignment.

Instead, let’s lean into the constraint you’ve been given and take a look at some 5-7-5 haiku examples that can help you to create your own.

The first haiku comes from the poet Edith Shiffert, who was born in 1916 and died in 2017:

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4. A leaf of bamboo
   drifts down to the balcony,
   the old cat bites it.

—

This haiku is different from those of Matsuo Basho above in that it doesn’t directly deal with introducing the reader to a season. It does, however, put two images of decline into conflict with one another.

What are the two images that Shiffert puts into contrast here? A leaf of bamboo drifting down to the balcony and the old cat biting the leaf. The image of the bamboo leaf falling gives us the sense of a formerly living thing finding its final resting place on the ground. And then, here comes the “old cat” to fight back against the decline of life by biting the leaf. The cat is old, the leaf is dying, but the cat resists death by fighting back.

Or, at least, that’s one way to read the poem. Perhaps the two images are giving you some different insight. What is it?

5-7-5 Haiku Examples (Continued)

This poem is a great example of how a haiku uses the external world to help us see everyday things in a different way.

Let’s take a look at some other 5-7-5 examples.

These two haikus come from a longer poem composed of a total of nine 5-7-5 haikus all attached to one another. The larger poem, “,” was written by Etheridge Knight in 1986.

Here are the two sections (they are not numbered like this in the poem; the numbers are part of our list):

—

5. Under moon shadows
   A tall boy flashes knife and
   Slices star bright ice.

 

6. In the August grass
   Struck by the last rays of sun
   The cracked teacup screams.

—

 

These two haikus use the 5-7-5 syllable pattern. They are likely also a little more difficult to understand. Why does the boy take a knife and slice “star bright ice”? Why does a cracked teacup scream? These images are very distinct, and when you hear the words, let them call up whatever images come to your mind. Can you see, vividly, the grass in August, the “last rays of sun,” and a teacup with a crack in it?

List (Continued)

Typically, we think of a tea kettle whistling when the water inside of it comes to a boil. But this is a cracked teacup that screams. Something familiar, yet different, is going on here. In the context of the larger poem, there are a lot of different ideas and images that work together to create meaning. For our purposes here, it’s worth seeing two 5-7-5 haikus that work to create images that turn your everyday life on its head.

A helpful way to write haikus

When you look at the world around you, what do you see? And then, what do you feel? You can put the images in front of you directly into a 5-7-5 format. And then, you can choose to push those images even further to express a thought or a feeling, if the poem you want to write calls for it.

Let me give you a 5-7-5 example of my own. This is our seventh example haiku!

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7. Snow falls in orange
   light, the torment glows outside
   the glass where you watch

—

As I write this article, I’m sitting at my desk, looking through the window, watching snow fall in the lamp light outside. So, I’ve taken those concrete images and fit them into the 5-7-5 form. I’ve started the haiku with these images outside of the poem’s speaker. But in the final line, I show the reader that the speaker is not only watching the snow fall outside, they are also watching an unnamed “you” who is watching the storm outside. I’ve called the storm a “torment,” which might be a little dramatic, but bear with me. Torment is close to tempest, which is a storm, so I’ll grant myself the poetic license to do it. So, the speaker is watching another person watch some kind of tranquil suffering that they cannot change, which is happening on the other side of the glass.

5-7-5 Haiku Examples (Continued)

How would the poem change if, instead of “you” in the final line, I said “where I watch”? What if I had used a less dramatic word than “torment”? I could have simply said “snow,” for example. Then, of course, I would have to change “snow” in the first line, but that’s easy. And maybe, now that we’re talking about it, I like that simplicity better.

Let’s see a revised version of the same haiku:

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8. White glow in orange
   light: snow falls outside of the
   window where I watch

—

In the revised version, I’ve taken the same image but made the poem completely different. I needed to move some of the words around to meet the 5-7-5 rule, but doing so opened up the possibility of new language. How did I do it?

Well, I liked the simple description of “snow falls outside of the window where I watch.” That meant that I needed to change the word “snow” in the first line, because I didn’t want that repetition. In a haiku, you obviously don’t have a lot of words to work with, so it’s important to choose wisely. You want to be precise in your language, but also choose based on the image that the words evoke and the sounds you can create with the specific combinations of words you choose.

5-7-5 Haiku Examples (Continued)

I first tried changing “snow” to “flakes” in the first line, but “flakes” made me think too much of cereal or someone who’s flakey. Yet, I wanted to find something more elegant. I went for color—white, obviously—and then I spent a little time just watching the snow in the street light outside my window. It really is glowing under the light in the early winter evening. For that reason, I chose to use the word “glow” not as a verb, but as a noun. The first half of the haiku is pure image: there isn’t even a verb there. That means that the second half, which is the simple description I liked so much, is working to define what the “white glow in orange light” is.

It’s pretty, and it’s much brighter than the original version, which to me held more of the darkness of the night outside. But the second version is not quite rising to the level of “insight” that I want my haiku to have. How could I change it one more time to give me the sense of something deeper? Let me try a third draft.

—

9. White glow in orange
   Snow falls on the window
   now cold to our touch.

—

List (Continued)

Let’s see if I’ve managed to make something more here. We still have the white glow in orange light. But now, the snow falls on the window itself, not just outside the window. And the falling of the snow on the window causes it to be “now cold to our touch.” I needed an extra syllable, so I chose the word “now” to indicate that something had changed from before, when there was not snow, to now, when there is snow. The words “our touch” mean that more than one person is here sharing the experience, and perhaps that something has “gone cold” between the people. Before the snow, their view of the outside world was warmer and brighter. After the snow, things are looking less positive, literally and figuratively.

My haiku isn’t going to win any literary prizes, but I wanted to show you how you can write a 5-7-5 haiku simply by looking at the world around you, describing an image, and then putting that image in juxtaposition with a second image.

List (Continued)

Now, as I look back on my three drafts, I actually like the first one I wrote better than the next two drafts. Let’s read it one more time, shall we?

—

10. Snow falls in orange
    light, the torment glows outside
    the glass where you watch

—

Which version do you like best: the first, second, or third?

Looking at the world around you, what images can you put together? What kind of meaning can you create?

60 Haiku Examples

We’ve already looked at 10 haikus. Let’s take a look at more haiku examples that will help you find your own voice:

by Sandra St-Laurent:

11) meeting the in-laws
the way she positions
her dragon tea pot

by Elizabeth Fisser:

12) spring thaw—
strangers meeting for
haiku

13) summer day—
child carrying the ocean in
his bucket

14) autumn frost:
cabbage-patch dolls in the window—
child homeless

15) april hailstones—
the landlord evicts
“aids” victim

5-7-5 Haiku Examples (Continued)

16)  mountain peaks
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cherry buds

17)   moon full—
mother superior closing
curtain

18)  clouds and sky—
on my back
floating

19) moon behind clouds
window frosting—
lovers quarrel

by Sylvia Forges-Ryan:

20) pines rustling
frogs croaking—
i get my trumpet

21) storm—
in the nursing home
sea captain listening

22) foghorn—
in the fishing village
two cars colliding

23) snow
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azalea buds

24) wind gusts—
in the monastery
monks chanting

List (Continued)

25) winter stillness—
snow on the wings of
cemetery angel

26) long night—
my rear view mirror empty
i sing the blues

27) plum petals
in her hair—
first heartbreak

28) morning glories—
girls telling
secrets

29) summer heat—
in the dry cleaner’s window
wedding dresses

5-7-5 Haiku Examples (Continued)

30) winter morning—
frozen on the line
widow’s nightgown

31) april breeze—
rereading
love letters

32) rain
changing to snow—
last goodbye

33) plum blossoms
on the ground
dream fading

by Virginia Brady Young:

34) owl hooting—
this night of
your death

35) sea calm—
gulls
twisting

36) early spring—
through my dirty window
robin

List (Continued)

37) may wind
on the knoll—
violets

38) first snowfall
on white chrysanthemums—
wood smoke

39) autumn afternoon—
tossing a petal into
grand canyon

40) pines gigantic
shadows long—
children laughing

5-7-5 Haiku Examples (Continued)

41) geese
flying north—
train whistle

42) lilac scent—
child in coma
awakens

43) winter wind—
on his headstone
sunlight

by Annette Hollander:

44) after the hurricane
the air of
my childhood

45) drops of rain
here and there—
butterfly

46) icicles falling
from her neighbor’s roof—
new window

47) sunrise—
baby peeking over
crib

48) waves breaking—
away from the hustle and bustle
i go limp

5-7-5 Haiku Examples (Continued)

49) sea and sky endless—
in the sand
child playing

50) clouds overcast—
dragonflies among
water flies

by Florence Underwood:

51) late autumn
snow predicted—
dandelions blooming

52) white zinnia
bees and beetles—
children singing

53) winter night—
the bathroom faucet
dripping

54) spring rain—
rings of light over
purple irises

List (Continued)

55) winter night—
in the firelight
your red hair

56) april showers—
earthworms and
robin

by Jack Donnell:

57) clouds
swirling in the hurricane—
hammers pounding

58) flowers trampled—
stray dog nuzzling
her face

59) clouds
swirling in the hurricane—
hammers pounding

60) winter silence:
rifles cracking—
soldier’s grave

These poems all come from the , created by Tony Suraci, hosted by The Haiku Foundation.

7-5-7 Haiku Examples 

If you’re searching for haikus that follow a 7-5-7 syllable format, you might be confusing or transposing the order of the numbers. If you’re looking to compose a haiku for a school assignment and you’ve been taught to follow a specific syllable structure, you should write the haiku in the traditionally taught 5-7-5 format. Again, it works like this:

• Five syllables in the first line
• Seven syllables in the second line
• Five syllables in the third line

However, as we’ve discussed, the syllable constraint really is a very modern, English language development. So, if you have an assignment to write a haiku without specific syllable requirements, you could technically choose to write the poem in a 7-5-7 syllable format.

Additional Resources

• 55 Best Poems About Life
• 100 Tone Words to Express Mood in Your Writing
• 20 Poetic Devices High School Students Must Know – With Examples