Haiku — Is There Less to It Than Meets the Eye?
In this thrilling series on rhyming schemes, we look at one of the most famous forms in the world. But is it all an urban myth?
I have been delaying writing about the haiku for a rather embarrassing reason. I hate the form and its smug simplicity allegedly conveying profound meaning. To me, it’s a bit Emperor’s-New-Clothes-ish — all style and no substance. Like those abstract pictures critics rave about which look like a chimp or a child painted them. Some really have been painted by babies and baboons, which leaves me smirking as the art world struggles to excuse the fact it has been conned by a monkey with a brush or a child with acrylics.
This is very anti-haiku and I know I could be doing the form a gross mis-service, or to put it another way:
Haiku goes deeper
Than its simple form suggests.
Sometimes less is more.
In case you had missed it, that is an example of the typical haiku form: 17 syllables over three lines, using a five-syllable, seven-syllable, five-syllable pattern and with a touch of mystery hinting at a deep truth.
As I said, really annoying. (Also inaccurate as I will explain below.)
