Good morning! 
It is Saturday, 17 April 2021
(W15/D107/258 rem)
Today is: 
International Haiku Day
now is haiku day / say all in five seven five / irritate wife so
If there is one special thing that certain people tend to remember from school, it’s the day that we were introduced to the great Japanese art-form that is Haiku.
While it may have an ancient and noble history, it is likely at it’s most ignoble when a group of young kids try to cobble together Haiku in series of five-seven-five! Still, just the act of being creative can be fun and exciting, whether young or old.
The history of Haiku Poetry Day traces the origin of this beautiful, yet simple, form of poetry.
Haiku was originally found as the opening to another form of Japanese poetry called a Rengu. It took until the mid-1600’s for Hokku, the form Haiku was found in at this time, to start appearing independently from its parent form, Renga, and its Renku roots.
In the late 1800’s Hokku was renamed to Haiku when it appeared independently by the famous Japanese poet, author, and literary critic, Masaoka Shiki. Although Shiki only lived a short 35 years, he is credited with the writing of almost 20,000 stanzas, which is quite an accomplishment. He was considered to be one of the first great Haiku Masters.
Two other masters who were responsible for elevating the form of Haiku poetry to an independent art form are Matsuo Bashō and Ueshima Onitsura. These two were considered Masters of Poetry, and helped to promote Haiku so that it was appreciated and understood, even outside of its original context of Renku. So important was Basho to the history of Haiku that he was considered to be a ‘Saint of Poetry’ 100 years after his death.
So how did Haiku come to be in the West?
The man held responsible for this (and thus it appears in school curriculum books) was an unlikely Danish man named Hendrik Doeff. As commissioner of trade in Nagasaki in the 19th century, he developed a love of the art of Eastern poetry. Although he managed to bring it to the West himself, in general it wasn’t greatly received at first. In fact, it took until the early to mid-1900’s for Haiku to appear in the English language.
No matter what language a person speaks or where they come from, Haiku is one where the number of syllables used in a poem can serve as a framework for some of the most beautiful pieces of art ever formed. And Haiku Day is just the day to celebrate and appreciate this!
Haiku Day serves as a reminder that there is so much more to this style of poetry than a misspent week in high school literature classes. Instead, it’s a day to celebrate the width and depth and breadth that can be enjoyed when words are limited but imaginations are allowed to soar.
Use Write a Haiku to help count the syllables in your haiku as you create it:
i write haiku for / you to realise that i / can count to seven
Or try Poem of Quotes’ Haiku Generator which creates a haiku for you using your suggestions of related nouns:
electric, moving / average number of cars / into the driver
Or go full random generated haiku at Poem Generator using your own terms or purely random ones:
unfriendly hillside / an atlantic dolphin barks / because of the house
Sometimes, with the right combination of nouns and a little luck, you can get something decent:
boisterous, happy / doubled over with laughter / of the greatest joys
Finally, perhaps one of the more interesting haiku generators is the OpenStreetMap Haiku Generator which uses location information to generate haiku against a very minimalist map background:
Try the generators, or write your own, and submit your creations here for critical appraisal. 
Either way, saturday, sleep late / upon pillow rest your head / great day have later! 