The haiku is a fairly new style of Japanese poetry. Haiku became popular in the 17th and 18th century through such poets as Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki, the latter coined the term "haiku." Basho especially influenced the haiku form. Throughout his life, Basho alternated between living in isolation and traveling widely around Japan. In his isolation, Basho practiced Zen meditation. The haiku form evolved from these experiences of pondering both inward spirituality and the world around him.
The haiku's structure follows one line of five syllables, one line of seven syllables and one line of five syllables again, for a total of 17 syllables. Syllable rules for the haiku are even stricter in Japanese, but in English, writers normally follow the 5/7/5 pattern. The haiku does not posses any rhyme scheme.
Because the haiku is so brief, it relies on simple phrases. Every word in the haiku has to play a meaningful role, so haiku poets choose their words carefully:
Over the wintry
Forest, winds howl in rage
With no leaves to blow.
In this haiku, Natsume Soseki uses one sentence to capture a single idea.
The brevity of the haiku lends itself well to imagery, the only literary device haiku poets conventionally rely on. The haiku presents a single, evanescent image using the five senses, trying to recreate a sensual experience for the reader in words, similar to the stroke of a paintbrush. Traditionally, haiku poets strove to capture images in nature, particularly ones that reflected a particular season, as in Soseki's example above.