ShmoopTube

00:04

[Dino and Coop singing]

00:13

Imagine a world without rules... [Earth with a no rules sign stuck in it]

00:16

Sure, it might be fun eating chocolate cake for dinner every night, but eventually you

00:20

might just get sick of it… or just plain sick. [Girl's face turns green]

00:23

The same can be said about poetry. [Poetry skate boarding]

00:25

Sure, it's fun to write poetry without any rules at all.

00:28

You can make up words, use no punctuation, and express yourself in any way you can imagine.

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And that’s totally allowed.

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But sometimes, it can be pretty fun to try and write poetry with rules. [Girl holding her no rules poem up]

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And that's exactly what a haiku is.

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A haiku is a special kind of poem that has a very specific structure. [Dino next to a blackboard]

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It has three lines...

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…the first line has five syllables...

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…the second line has seven syllables….

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…and the third line has five syllables, too.

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Each haiku will sound something like this:

00:56

Dun dun dun dun dun Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun

01:03

Dun dun dun dun dun

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Except, well, the “dun”s will be words.

01:09

Or you could just use "dun" and claim it's an abstract haiku. [Girl holding up her abstract haiku]

01:13

Maybe your teacher will let it fly. [The teacher doesn't look impressed]

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But if you do choose words, you can’t choose interesting words without choosing a topic. [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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It can be a fun topic, a nice topic, a weird topic, a gross topic – any topic at all.

01:24

It's all up to you.

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We’re gonna go with the best topic of all – pizza. [Box opens to reveal a pizza with haiku written on it]

01:30

Now that you have a topic, go ahead and write down some nouns and adjectives that relate to it.

01:34

We've gone with cheesy, gooey, hot, delicious, and amazing…

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And we’re also making ourselves hungry. [Guy eating a slice of pizza with stringy cheese]

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Next, we write down the amount of syllables each word has next to that word.

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So cheesy has two syllables.

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Gooey has two, hot has one, delicious has three and amazing has 12.

01:51

…Heh. Just making sure you're still awake.

01:53

It actually has three.

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All that's left to do is organize your words into lines so that each line has the right [The words being moved into lines]

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number of syllables.

02:00

It'll look a little something like this…

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Hot, cheesy pizza So gooey and delicious

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Mmm, how amazing!

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The first and third lines have five syllables and the second one has seven, so we did it! [The syllables being added up]

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And as you can see, a haiku doesn’t have to rhyme, though it can if you want it to!

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Now it’s your turn.

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Write a haiku about anything you can possibly think of.

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There's no rules at all! [Dino and Coop cheering]

02:24

Well, except the rules about the syllables and the lines…

02:27

Ehhh, you get the point.

Full Transcript