Manchester City Library

One of my assignments here at the library is to reach out to the public using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. I try to tweet or post something about the library or some sort of interesting fact almost every day. I try to keep it lively and interesting, but you might imagine that it is not so easy to do this every day and have it be something new and different.
Tweets are text-based posts composed of up to 140 characters. So what you want to say has to be short and sweet! Enter the haiku!

Haiku poems are forms of poetry that originated in Japan over 300 years ago. Haiku poems are very short sets of words that often express a unique thought or feeling. Traditional haiku consist of 17 on (also known as morae), in three phrases of 5, 7 and 5 on respectively. It is a short poem that records the essence of a moment, cutting right to the chase. One of the most famous haiku poets was the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. Here is one of his most famous haiku, called “Old Pond”.  First, read the translation from the Japanese.

old pond . . .
a frog leaps in
water’s sound

Now, a modern translation for you:

an old silent pond…
a frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

Writing haiku can be fun and maddening at the same time.  We have plenty of books on the subject.

an aging willow
its image unsteady
in the flowing stream

So I ask you, do you haiku?