Rules are a good thing. They keep us focused and help us understand how to do something. When it comes to haiku rules however, some things are less than useful.

Take the 5-7-5-syllable rule for instance. A nice rule that dictates the form of the poem. Five syllables for line 1, seven for line 2 and five again for line 3. It's been used for many, many years to generate fine haiku poems. But this haiku rule in particular has given way to what is called "free form" haiku.

Free form haiku still uses the 3-line format (for the most part) but instead of the strict adherence to 5-7-5, we have any number of syllables in any of the lines. For example, take a look at this haiku by the author:

A crab
Appears from a crevice…
Midnight sun

Here we see the 5-7-5 haiku rule broken completely. Yet we still have a haiku here. How is this possible? Because we are still adhering to the basic haiku philosophy which is a brief description about a present moment. More specifically, new haiku forms have emerged that focus on something called fragment and phrase theory. In fact, most modern haiku poets use this way of composing haiku whether they know it or not.

In the above poem, the fragment is "Midnight sun." The phrase is "a crab appears from a crevice." Taken separately, fragment and phrase are nothing spectacular to say the least. But when combined, they form something we can appreciate in totality. We get something I like to call macro-micro view. In this poem we have a micro view first. We see a crab crawling from a crevice. In line 3 we get a more cosmic view if you will. We get the time of day and the time of year through the reference "midnight sun."

Haiku rules are a good thing. But rules must bend when new forms of artistic expression make their way on the scene.

Edward Weiss is a poet, author, and publisher of Wisteria Press. He has been helping students learn how to write haiku for many years and has just released his first book "Seashore Haiku!" Sign up for free daily haiku and get beautiful haiku poems in your inbox each morning! Visit http://www.wisteriapress.com for haiku books, lessons, articles, and more!