Haiku poetry appeared in the sixteenth century. It was mostly centered in Japan. There were two main reasons that people wrote haiku. It was a way for people to express their thoughts, and to rise above the limitations imposed by the usual language and thought that treats everything as machines. Most haiku is written in plain, everyday, language. (Lewis)

Haiku developed from a different form of poetry called tanka, which dates all the way back to early Japanese history. Tanka is a five-lined verse. After haiku was created, it was usually seen as the hokku of a renga. A hokku is the first line in a renga and a renga is a long series of poems. The development of haiku was never influenced at all by the west or China.

The word haiku actually means game verse. This form of poetry is sometimes c

 "Haiku," Hutchinson Dictionary of the Arts, Helicon Publishing, 1999

The fourth element of haiku is the season word. A season word exists in every haiku. The word is meant to help the reader to interpret the haiku and its meaning. The word is also used to help describe the setting of the scene and also invokes the season in which the writer is trying to express in his or her haiku.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1201
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)