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nYounmay already know that a haiku is a traditional Japanese poem that isnvery short. In just three non-rhyming lines, of five, seven, and fivensyllables, a haiku paints a quick picture of something in nature ornthat connects to seemingly unrelated things. Here is an example:
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nA frog jumpsninto the pond,
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nsplash!nSilence again.
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- – byn Matsuo Basho
- Ton celebrate the day, write and read haiku! You can find some haikun poems here and here. n
- Brucen Lansky, the writer who runs Giggle Poetry’s online “poetry class,”n thinks that the strict syllable count is not the most importantn thing about haiku. Instead of holding to a 5-7-5 pattern, he hopesn kids and other haiku writers will capture the essence of haiku byn describing a natural scene in as few words as possible—and byn conveying emotion with the short poem. Here’s one of his haiku.
- Frogn sunning on lily pad
as dragonfly darts by.
Thrapp! - – byn Bruce Lansky
- What’sn a syllable?
- An syllable is a unit of sound that contains one vowel sound (althoughn it may contain more than one vowel!).
- Countingn syllables is like counting how many “beats” a word has:
nthen word “beat” has one syllable
nthen word “counting” has two syllables (count – ing)andn the word “syllable” has three syllables (syl – la – ble)
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- Here‘sn a tool to help you count syllables.
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nAnniversary of first string of Christmas lights—bensure to check out the linked home light-shows!
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