The haiku form is short, sharp, and intense because it aims to record rare glowing moments in which our life radiates rays of light.

— Ogiwara Seisensui (1884-1976)

The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don’t think American Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry about syllables because American speech is something again…bursting to pop. Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella.

—Jack Kerouac

year after year
on the monkey’s face
a monkey’s face

— Basho

shaking

a baby buggy gently

I buy a new diary

— Saki Kouno

if I take this way
I will reach the sea
New Year’s sunset

— Sumiko Ikeda

new year’s fog

she washes

all the windows

— Pamela Miller Ness

my tumble-down house

just as it is …

“Happy New Year!”

— Issa

along my journey
through this transitory world —
New Year’s housecleaning

— Bashō

let myself go to bed —

New Year’s Day is only a matter

for tomorrow

— Buson

New Year’s first poem

written, now self-satisfied,

O haiku poet!

— Buson

New Year’s Day

a wind-blown twig

writing on snow

— Jane Reichhold

pleasant memories

have their abode in the moon ­—

New Year’s Eve

— Fukatake

since my youngest days

the same mole

New Year’s mirror

— Mitsu Suzuki

New Year’s Day—

everything is in blossom!

I feel about average

— Issa

a rusty cannon

with its muzzle toward doves

…New Year’s Eve

— Chenou Liu

New Year’s Morning

looking at the falling snow

and the blank pages of the journal

— Judy A. Totts

New Year’s Day

Our sight shall be

Mount Fuji

— Sōkan