During April, we’ll be inspiring you with poems our judges have either written or poems they admire. We kick off the month with Marco Fraticelli, our 2021 judge for the Haiku Junior category of our international competition.

Thinking of entering? Head on over to our International Poetry Competition page to get all the guidelines and entry forms.

Meanwhile, Marco shares with us a few haiku he has written with some helpful insights. Enjoy!

I miss you

more and more

leaves falling

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butterflies

wasting my time

writing haiku

These use a technique where the middle line acts as a pivot, and can be linked with either the first line or the third.

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watching the cat

watching the bird

watching the butterfly

Although there seems to be a lot going on in this haiku, it is actually a split second in time. Who will spoil the moment by moving? The butterfly, the bird, the cat . . . or the poet? 

newly widowed 

watering her lawn 

in the rain

One image tells a whole story.

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superstar concert for the unfortunate

the girls shake

tambourines

Haiku can even be political

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after recess

the children line up

geese leaving

Although, as a general rule, poetic devices should be avoided when writing haiku, sometimes comparisons can be implied. Here the children line up as the geese also do when they fly in a vee.

Also, there is an implied contrast between the ‘captivity’ of the school children and the freedom of the geese who are free to fly away when the weather starts to get cold.