While it’s traditionally 17 syllables (in English arrayed in lines of 5-7-5,) the American Haiku tradition often takes that as an upper limit with some using a 2-3-2 stressed beat rule or a 12-14 syllable rule. (English is on average syllabically longer than Japanese, and thus can lose the sparse feel of Japanese Haiku at the full 17 syllables.)
Traditional haiku usually have a “season word” in them to set what time of year it is. This, however, has become less required in modern haiku.
Strictly speaking, a haiku is imagist, usually juxtaposing two images to create the effect. Much of what is written today as Haiku is properly Senryū, which has the same form as Haiku but allows humor and imposition of more than images (thoughts, feelings, humor, anthropomorphization, etc.)
To recap: 1.) max 17 syllables; 2.) set season — either explicitly or with a word (e.g. a flower, an insect, snow, etc.) that establishes season; 3.) try to just put two images together — not explaining or injecting other meaning; 4.) avoid redundancy (you don’t have the space for it.)
I always recommend “The Haiku Handbook” by William Higginson as one-stop shopping for understanding how to write and read Haiku, particularly the non-Japanese versions of the genre that have come along. That book also has extensive lists of season words so that you can avoid the ham-handed approach that I too often use of directly stating the season. (e.g. in the above poem.)
Tiger Riding for Beginners 
Very nice. :3 If I could only learn the format of a haiku, then maybe I could write some??
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While it’s traditionally 17 syllables (in English arrayed in lines of 5-7-5,) the American Haiku tradition often takes that as an upper limit with some using a 2-3-2 stressed beat rule or a 12-14 syllable rule. (English is on average syllabically longer than Japanese, and thus can lose the sparse feel of Japanese Haiku at the full 17 syllables.)
Traditional haiku usually have a “season word” in them to set what time of year it is. This, however, has become less required in modern haiku.
Strictly speaking, a haiku is imagist, usually juxtaposing two images to create the effect. Much of what is written today as Haiku is properly Senryū, which has the same form as Haiku but allows humor and imposition of more than images (thoughts, feelings, humor, anthropomorphization, etc.)
To recap: 1.) max 17 syllables; 2.) set season — either explicitly or with a word (e.g. a flower, an insect, snow, etc.) that establishes season; 3.) try to just put two images together — not explaining or injecting other meaning; 4.) avoid redundancy (you don’t have the space for it.)
I always recommend “The Haiku Handbook” by William Higginson as one-stop shopping for understanding how to write and read Haiku, particularly the non-Japanese versions of the genre that have come along. That book also has extensive lists of season words so that you can avoid the ham-handed approach that I too often use of directly stating the season. (e.g. in the above poem.)
Good Luck.
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