Young Writers Society

Here are some of my haikus. Will you please give me advice?!

#1
midsummer
the fresh wood scent
of the lumberyard

#2
mid afternoon
the scent of lilacs
hidden by a gray fence

#3
fresh snow
a new footprint
from a leather shoe

#4
Dance floor
a womans body
swings side to side

#5
Willow branch
covered in frost
retreating storm

Hmmm... you need to un-focus on the same exact thing... it seems like you were thinking of different elements, but not different senses, or different styles of writing the haikus. I don't know about anything else, I'm terrible at haiku's.

Willow branch
covered in frost
retreating storm

What I do know about haiku's is that they have 5 syllable's, 7, and then 5. The first and second line in this do not follow that rule.

Dance floor
a woman's body
swings side to side

Neither does this... am I missing something?

Well, I saw that most of these do not follow the rule of haiku's... if I am wrong, then PM me about it, but I would not call these haiku's if they do not follow the main definition of them. Anywho, I liked these! I love anything that has to do with nature

[spoiler]6/10... they don't follow the haiku rule! [/spoiler]

Yeah, haikus are 5 syllables, then 7, then 5. So I'd fix these.

As I pm-ed Peanutgallery007, these are called American haiku's. They do not follow that 5 7 5 rule. That is a Japanese haiku. An American haiku has less than sixteen syllables.

Thank you any-who!

I'm not very good at critiquing poetry, so I apologize, I guess I should have stated that. My favorite poems were #2 and #5. I liked the approach you took on poem #2 with the colors. When I think of lilacs I think of bright vibrant purple flowers and then they were behind a gray fence. When I think of gray, I think of bland and dull, so the contrast was very powerful. In poem #5 I could really visualize the branches covered in a sheen of frost as the storm retreated, I liked the overall imagery you created there. In the first and third poem I felt some of the material you used was rough. For instance, lumberyard and leather sound so masculine and man-made that it seemed wrong for this type of poetry. I was under the impression that most haikus are written about nature, but I could be wrong. As for #4 it was okay, but I would have liked something in there about her hips keeping tempo, I think that is a stronger imagery than her just swaying side to side. Hope that helped, although I don't really felt I did very good.

Hello!


I think you have nice ideas here, but you need to find a better choice of words and use them to capture just the perfect images. Incorporate some strong emotions and images in your haikus.

I really like this one:

#1
midsummer
the fresh wood scent
of the lumberyard

and a little nitpick about this one:

#4
Dance floor
a womans body
swings side to side

Incorrect: womans
Correct: woman's

This haiku just didn't do it for me. It didn't make me feel anything, didn't give me a clear image. Just didn't mean anything. For me, haiku's are all about strong imagery that rouse emotions, ideas, thoughts, memories, etc. Use strong imagery, that is all I can suggest. But don't be to discouraged by my review. Your poetry shows potential, but there's much room for improvement.

I recommend you read this article on imagery. It has some great tips, and it's written by a YWS member.

Read more poetry, keep writing poetry, and you're good to go.
-Zehra