An Eye for Season — Now Write Your Own Haiku

Over thirty days, we have not treated haiku as a numerical rule alone. We have explored how season words carry cultural memory, how images meet in a small verbal space, how Bashō, Buson, Issa, and Shiki offer different ways of seeing, and how form changes in English and Korean. Now it is time to return all of that knowledge to one actual observation.

First, choose one clue that shows today’s season without naming “spring, summer, autumn, or winter.” Next, add one object or event you actually noticed in your present place. Then look at the relation between them. Is too much explanation filling the gap? Leave a small space the reader can cross.

You do not need to produce a perfect 5–7–5 immediately, nor should form simply be ignored. In Korean, begin with a brief, natural three-line phrasing and read it aloud. Then make another version closer to 5–7–5 and compare them. You will feel directly how form and language negotiate with each other. If you use a kigo, check its traditional context and also ask what it means in your actual place today.

During final revision, look less at “what I want to say” and more at “what the reader can see.” Remove unnecessary adjectives and explanation; keep the most alive object and action. Close the poem and return an hour later. In a short poem, choosing can take longer than writing.

And remember: finishing one poem today is not the end. Tomorrow the light on the same road will change, the leaves on the same tree will change, and the same person’s voice will change. Writing haiku means discovering that a world that appears repetitive is never exactly the same twice. Now begin your one line.