Peter Galen Massey

(route 38)

from the bound river / morning mist rises to meet / the diesel exhaust

alone in the booth / he sits over cold coffee / and stares at the road

see in the mirror / she’s singing with the music / for one moment. free

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(east vincent)

like a sigh in sleep / like a wave glazing the sand / i’ll slip away home

feel her weight heavy / for the earth. this is a task / of the working day

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(north tower)

with an endless sigh / the slow water falls and falls / the names are silent

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(new york city)

the shifting windows / of the racing subway cars / a kaleidoscope

sprawled on the sidewalk / the blue-gloved cop takes her pulse / the city walks on

why look? you can take / a picture. there’s no magic / in the thing itself

across new york bay / a monarch in raging flight / charges the skyline

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(5th arrondissement)

on the boulevard / the waiter brings the coffee / like he knows our secrets

the ancient church bells / fill the air with sounding bronze / time is older here

(place de la contrescarpe)

what news, what cruel words / from the remorseless screen made / the young woman weep

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Modern Haiku Video

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This video features modern haiku about rage, despair, darkness, and death. The song “I Forgot to Water My Potted Plant… Yay!” was written and performed by Pineapple Hat, and is used with the artists’ permission.

Modern Haiku FAQs

How Are Modern Haiku Different From Traditional Haiku?

Traditional haiku in English imitate the work of famous poets such as Matsuo Basho and Yosa Buson. They follow the 5-7-5 syllable format that approximates the 5-7-5 mora of haiku written in Japanese. Traditional haiku are limited to observations of nature and the seasons within a moment of time. They don’t use poetic language or devices, they create a seeming objectivity by avoiding any expression of the poet’s ideas or emotions, and they don’t have titles.

Modern haiku don’t limit themselves to the 5-7-5 syllable format. They use different line lengths and syllable counts although modern haiku generally limit themselves to two or three brief lines. Modern haiku consider subjects other than nature, can use poetic language and devices, and may express the poet’s ideas or emotions.

Many of the poems on this site meet this definition of modern haiku, including the ones on this page. There are some additional differences, however. The poems on this page have titles, which is not typical for haiku. These titles function mostly as place labels rather than helping you understand the intent of the poem. The second difference is most of the poems on this page are collections of interrelated haiku, which in some ways function as stanzas in the poems. You’ll find more examples of these kinds of modern haiku on this site.

Are Traditional Haiku Objective?

No, they are not. You can make a good case that traditional haiku give readers more freedom to find their own meanings in the poem because the poet withholds her thoughts and feelings. This is certainly true and it is one of the characteristics of haiku that make them interesting.

However, you can’t escape the issues of selection and attention. No matter how dispassionately a poet chooses the elements she includes in her haiku, and no matter how objectively she describes these elements, the fact remains that she has chosen them and by placing them in a poem, implied they have an importance which is likely to provoke the reader into finding a meaning in the haiku even if the poet intends none — a meaning that the reader will then often attribute to the poet herself.

To write an objective haiku, you might have to do something like this:

waves and waves and waves
and waves and waves and waves and
waves and waves and waves

I can see this haiku provoking a range of responses, from how relaxing to how sinister to no duh to so what. Consider another example:

day and night and day
and night and day and night and
day and night and day

Reading this haiku as an objective observation makes the poem so obvious, there’s no point in reading it at all. Deciding the poem expresses the despair of the meaningless succession of days and nights makes it a little better, but not much. Finally consider this example:

i love you love you
love you love you love you love
you love you love you

Here the meaning of the haiku seems clear IF we think the poet is speaking sincerely. But how do we know this? If we somehow know the poet is speaking sincerely, what’s with the repetition? Does it come from passion or desperation or pleading or bullying or something else?

I think it’s best to see the meaning of poems as existing on a continuum between less determined and more determined. Poems where the poet withholds her thoughts and feelings are less determined (more “objective” if you like) and poems where the poet express her thoughts and feelings are more determined. This continuum never reaches 0% or 100%, and we would not want it to reach these points. It is the interaction between poets and readers that make haiku and other poems worth reading.