My Haiku

 

In Mandarin we wrote a Chinese haiku.  Well, it is actually a 五七五诗, which means five seven five poem in English. The reason it is called that is because one the first line, there is five syllables, on the second, seven, and on the third, five again. A five seven five poem is different from a haiku because a haiku is about expressing the beauty of nature, while a 五七五诗 can be about whatever you want. Here is my 五七五诗.

我会用筷子。

我的筷子是火马。

我爱是筷子。

Translated to English, it is this.

 

I can use chopsticks.

My chopsticks are fire horse.

I love my chopsticks.

 

You might be saying to yourself, “but Oliver, I counted all of the syllables in your English haiku, and it does not follow the rules of five seven five.” Well, you are wrong. That was just a translation of my 五七五诗. I don’t know if you noticed, but in the Chinese version of the poem, there is five characters on the first line, seven on the second, and five again on the third. This is because every single character in Chinese is one syllable.

You also might be wondering, “wait, what? Your chopsticks are fire horse? What the heck does that even mean?” Well, poetry is all up to interpretation, and there are no rules. I like how the characters sound in mandarin, and I think that a sense of randomness is refreshing. If you disagree, well, it is not your poem. It is mine, and it is lovely. I hope you enjoyed it.