MANAGING MINIMUM LETTER COUNTS

Day 23 Prompt – MINIMUM LETTER COUNTS INSPIRE HAIKU

National Haiku Writing Month (#NaHaiWriMo) is almost over. I decided, toward the end of the month, I would create more challenging prompts. Having referenced minimum letter counts previously, in addition to writing haiku that exemplifies this approach, I am focusing on it again and intensifying the challenge.

Many years ago, during a workshop I was leading, when I wrote a haiku that would later win a local contest, the challenge that I issued to everyone was to write haiku using words with no less than four letters each. My reasoning was that the bigger the words, the greater the meaning or expressive value. Many of the words had more letters, but I was able to honor the self-imposed minimum letter requirement (and prove to the participants that it could be done). Two words in my poem had 4 letters each; the other words were larger.

To make the challenge more interesting, I would simply increase the minimum letter count and only add words to my word list that have at least that many letters. Instead of arranging them by the number of syllables, I am more inclined to create lists of parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, verbs). Then, as I start putting phrases together, I start counting syllables.

When I started challenging myself in this way, I needed to work my way up to larger letter counts. So, I started with 4-letter-count-words and gradually increased the minimum. After completing a few haiku, I would work on writing with 5-letter minimum words, then I would set my goal for no words smaller than 6-letters. Earlier this month, I wrote my first haiku in which the smallest words contained 7 letters.

It has been 15 years since I wrote that award-winning poem during my workshop. Since then, minimum letter counts have become my favorite way to challenge myself with regard to haiku technique. I use this approach so frequently, new haiku form very quickly in my mind, usually before I can write them down.

Practice makes proficient!