-What is haiku?
Haiku are short, imagistic poems about things that make people feel connected to nature. Japanese have written haiku for hundreds of years.
-Haiku form-
Japanese poets usually write a haiku in 17 'on' (Japanese syllable sounds) in a short/long/short pattern of 5/7/5 'on'. These 'on' are shorter than English syllables. English haiku tends to be less than 17 syllables.
-Basically, a haiku gives the reader a sense of something happening at a specific moment in time...something that caused the writer to pause and take notice. A haiku should share a moment of experience of awareness with the reader: peace, sadness, mystery...these are only a few of the emotions that evoke haiku. In haiku, we have to give the reader words that help recreate the experience, the image or images that gave us the feeling. telling the reader how we feel does not make the reader feel anything and does not make a good haiku. click here for source

by William J. Higginson, American poet, translator and author most notable for his work with haiku and renku, click here for source

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