concise writing

The haiku journal Frogpond has accepted a haiku poem of mine for publication. The editor is Michael Ketchek. Although Japanese haiku are usually 17 syllables long and divided 5-7-5, current literary theory insists that haiku written in English should be much shorter. So my accepted haiku poem is only 9 syllables long and divided 3-3-3. Margaret Sturr, my senior honors English teacher in high school, introduced our class to haiku during our 1966-1967 academic year. I like this form because it forces a writer to be very concise and to eliminate any unnecessary words. I have read a lot of traditional and modern haiku poems to understand this genre of literature better. I think that the effort to be more concise has improved my writing. Janet Ruth Heller reading her poems at the Kalamazoo Public Library. Photo by Hedy Habra.