The haiku is a form of poetry that originates from Japan. The American version of this delicate art form consists of a short seventeen syllable poem in three lines. The first line contains 5 of those syllables, the second has seven, and the third has five syllables as well. In it's original Japanese form, however it contains seventeen characters rather than syllables per say. This is because of the way the Japanese language and alphabet is set up.

Nature and the seasons are a very common focus of the haiku's from Japan. Much of the beauty of Haiku tends to be lost in translation, as is true of most works of art when switching from one language to another. The inability for certain aspects of the culture to translate from language to language leads to the common misconception that Haikus are not required to make sense.

There is a shirt that could be purchased from the Threadless site (http://www.threadless.com/pro duct/623/Haikus_are_easy_but) that contains a haiku poem on the front, poking fun at the fact that many haiku's don't tend to make sense, it reads:

Haikus are easy
but sometimes they don't make sense
refrigerator

The above Haiku does fulfill all the syllable requirements, and is rather amusing if I do say so myself (I do own the shirt), but it is lacking in the poetic grace of the more sophisticated verse.

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