Haiku
Rules quoted from the poets.org glossary; examples only from public-domain poems.
The rules, quoted
A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count.
Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression.
Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of renga
Our explanation written by Tale of the Muse
A traditional Japanese haiku is three lines and seventeen syllables, counted 5, 7 and 5, often built on an image from nature and aiming at simplicity and directness. The glossary traces it to thirteenth-century Japan, where it began as the opening phrase of renga.
Our plain-language restatement of the glossary rules above. It adds no facts of its own.
Example
No public-domain example is shown for this form.