How to write Haiku poem!!

 "Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto." Okay, so don't adjust your set, this is anEnglish lesson, but we're looking today at haiku, which is a Japanese form of poetry,but lots of English poems have been written in the haiku form. So, first of all, I'd liketo thank my students, Kuni and Negu, for their help in training me to recite thishaiku in Japanese. I hope it was okay. So, this is a poem about a frog jumping intoa pond and making a splash. So, it's a very simple, straightforward scene, just a descriptionof something in nature, and haiku is often describing something in nature. And you mightthink: "Well, why...? How is haiku going to help me learn English?" Okay? So, the... It'sa very, very short kind of poem. You can see it's three lines, not many words, so it's amanageable, short thing to read every now and then, if you find some on the internetor whatever. And to find if there is a word in there that you don't know, you can lookit up and then you've learnt a new word. And also, with haiku there is often a philosophicalaspect. It's a description of something in nature, but there's also somethingthere for you to think about. So, okay, let me just summarize. So, the haikucomes from Japan originally. It started in the 9th century, so that's a long time ago.Basho, who wrote this poem, lived in the 17th century, and he's very famous as a writerof haiku and as a poet generally. Okay. One of the things about haiku is it's always...It's usually in three lines, and the number of syllables is five, seven, five. Some poets,some haiku I've read in English don't always follow that number of syllables, but basicallythey're usually three lines, very short, so they're very quick and easy to read, and itdoesn't take a lot of time to read a haiku and think about it a little bit,and maybe learn a new word or two. So, let's count the syllables, shall we? Justto be clear what syllables are. So: "Fu-ru i-ke ya"-that's five-"ka-wa-zu to-bi-ko-mu"-that'sseven-"mi-zu no o-to", five. So that's the number of syllables, because rhythmis very important in poetry. Okay. So, now we get on to an English version, andbecause of copyright rules and all that sort of thing, I decided I would write one of myown so that I can give myself permission to use it in this lesson. Okay, so here it is, andI've drawn a tree because that is relevant to the poem, so... And you might like to countthe syllables just to check that I got it right. So: "What do I do now? I'm thelast leaf on the tree Waving in the breeze." Okay? So "waving" is this sort of thing, thebreeze is the wind. The breeze... A breeze is a very small wind; not a very strong wind,just a gentle, little wind. Okay. So, here's the tree with one leaf left on it. So, it'sa scene from nature, if you've ever seen a tree with just one leaf left, and you're lookingand thinking: "Is that going to be blown off soon or will it stay all winter?" But a partfrom being a scene from nature, you might think: "Well, that's quite philosophical aswell", because if you relate it to a human person who is feeling alone like the lastleaf on the tree... Maybe the last person in their family. "What do I do now? I'm thelast leaf on the tree, waving in the breeze." So it has a kind of philosophical element aswell if you start thinking about the deeper meaning of it. Okay. So, I'm not really a poet, so that just provesthat you don't have to be a poet to write a haiku. So I'm going to encourage you to tryto write one of your own and just follow the number of syllables, write one in English,and post it in the comments on the engVid website. But before we finish this lesson, Ijust have one more haiku to show you written by a friend of mine who has given her permissionfor us to use her poem, and it's actually quite a funny one, so you can have humourin haiku as well, so let's have a look at that. Okay, so here is an example of a modern haikuwritten by my friend Sarah Lawson who has given us her permission to use her poem. That'sthe copyright symbol there to show that it's her copyright, her property. And it's quite ahumorous poem, it's quite funny, but I probably need to explain a little bit to explain whyit's funny. So, anyway, we're in London here filming and London is a big city with a lotof traffic, and there are often traffic jams, very slow. The cars can't move very quickly,they get stuck. So, the first line: "A London gridlock", and a gridlock is when the trafficjust gets so stuck it can't move. If you have a crossroads or something and the traffic,they're trying to get through the traffic lights in both directions, and they're juststuck there, waiting and waiting for ages. So, that's a gridlock. "A London gridlock - Butstill the drivers went from Tooting to Barking." Okay. Now, if you don't know London, you maynot be familiar with these two place names: "Tooting", which is in the southwest of London;and "Barking", which is northeast. Okay, so if you're literally going from Tooting toBarking, you're going from there to there, right across London, through the middle andout the other side. So it's a long, long way. So that's the literal meaning. Tooting is aplace, Barking is a place. But in addition to that, there's a double meaning here. "Tooting",there is a verb "to toot", "toot", and it's the kind of word that imitates the sound.So when you're in a car and you sound the horn, usually press the middle of the steeringwheel or something and go: "Bur, bur, bur, bur", that's tooting. So, the double meaningis there's a place called Tooting, but there's also the sound and the action, the verb: "tooting",the drivers are tooting. Okay. Making a lot of noise, trying to get through. And alsoBarking is the place, but "barking" is also... It's an idiom for somebody who is going a bitcrazy, because the full term is "barking mad". Okay. So, if somebody is barking mad,you imagine them barking like a dog. Maybe not literally, but they just say strange thingsand they do strange things. So, people just use the word "barking": "He's barking. Thatman is barking", and it means barking mad, you know, very strange person. So, that'sthe double meaning of this line. The place, places on either side of London, but alsothey're tooting their horns; and the traffic itself, because they can't get where theywant to be very quickly, it is driving them mad. They're going mad because they can'tget through to their destination. So that's the humour. And people say when you explain ajoke it's not funny anymore, but I hope... I hope you can see the humour in that. So,that's just to show how a haiku can be funny, can be a joke. So, again, I'd like to suggest that you giveit a try and see if you can write a haiku, either... Well, in your own native language,but also definitely in English. Try to write one in English and post it on the engVid websitein the comments section, and that would be a lot of fun to see what you've all writtenand for you to all see each other's haikus. So... Okay, so I hope that's been interesting.And there's a quiz, I'm sure there's going to be a quiz on this, so please look for thequiz. And there may be a resource sheet about poetry more generally. So that's allfor now, so see you again soon.