Poetry vs. Prose and my Relationship with the Haiku

There is one specific type of poem that I have always had a deep attachment to. The haiku—a three-line poem, with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second, and 5 in the last— is a strange choice at first, given poetry’s deep emphasis on creativity and freedom of choice. However, to me, the most powerful part of poetry is creating something unique within a familiar structure. Limerick, Haikus, Sonnets, etc. are all formal and relatively rigid structures of poetry, yet every writer’s attempt within this structure will produce a piece of vastly different writing. Good poetry is specific to the life experience of the writers. Shel Silverstein, Robert Frost, and Shakespeare all lived vastly different lives, and their poetry is a reflection of that.

In the spirit of that claim, here is the first Haiku that I’ve ever drafted:

a trek to Dessau

confusion and a lesson

form follows function  

While it was far from a masterpiece, this haiku captured a very distinct screenshot in my life. My parents have always been completely obsessed with modernism. As a result, at the tender age of 16, I was dragged along to visit the Bauhaus, a German design school responsible for producing many famous modernist designers. I realized how helpful of an experience it really was and decided to write genuinely about it. 

This trip became the basis for my interest in poetry, an interest so intertwined with my family and life that, in the argument between prose and poetry, I am most certainly biased. 

I’ve found, at least in my attempts at both prose and poetry, that it is far easier to express your voice in prose than poetry. My suspicion is that prose’s similarity to conversational English makes it far easier to digest and articulate your words. However, in some of my better-written poetry, I find a reflection of far more than just my voice; it is a reflection of my life experiences, internal conflict, and even the mood that I’m in as I’m writing. While my experience is most certainly individual, I have concluded that my prosaic writing is far more consistent with my voice, while my poetic writing either represents me at a deeper level or is completely alien.