Another excerpt from an essay that is worth reading in its entirety.
I have been having a lot of conversations lately about what the “rules” of haiku are. Part of the problem of defining haiku in English is that the form was imported from another language with a very different structure and another country with a very different culture, so the Japanese “rules” don’t entirely work here. For this reason, we are somewhat free to make up our own.
My “rules,” as you can probably tell, change from day to day. But yes, I like the discipline of shaping the language in a very specific, stylized way to fit my thoughts.
“Writing haiku is a discipline and if you are interested in haiku you are seeking more discipline in your life. Go for it. Make rules for yourself and follow them exactly, or break them completely, outgrow them and find new ones. We are all students and no one “really” knows how to write a haiku. That, however, does not stop us from trying…”
— Jane Reichhold, Another Attempt To Define Haiku
(Written for and first posted on the Shiki International Haiku Salon, April 16, 1996)
Red Dragonfly 