Haiku
Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry which originated hundreds of years ago. It is distinctive because it is very brief. It captures a single moment or thought in few words. In the Japanese language which is written in characters, a haiku is typically composed using just seventeen sound units (similar to syllables in English) and is expressed in three short lines. There are five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and five again in the third line. Another distinctive quality about Haiku is that it does not rhyme.
In the 17th century, haiku also emerged as an art form in Japan. Almost all Haiku poems relate to the beauty of nature and the Japanese Zen philosophy. Other topics that haiku poems deal with are animals, season of the year, or something as simple as a rain drop or a snowflake.
Example: In a pouch I grow,
On a southern continent
Strange creatures I know
Rabindranath Tagore composed haiku too and also translated some Japanese haiku into Bengali. Newer forms of haiku in English experiment with a wide range of topics.
