Creative Strength Training

CHAPTER 4

The Power of Limitations

Haiku

The Japanese poetry form haiku is an example of working within limitations. Traditional haiku were related to a season, or the natural world, and were referred to as a “fixed form” because the structure always consisted of seventeen sound units.

Western writers substituted syllables for sound units. A fixed-form haiku is composed of three lines: a first line of five syllables, a second line of seven syllables and a third line of five syllables. Contemporary free-form haiku may abandon the seventeen-syllable ...