A Left-Brained Writing Prompt from WritingFix
Focus Trait: IDEA DEVELOPMENT Skill: SHARPENING DETAILS

Simple Formula Poem:
Dueling Haikus

This writing prompt generator was one of the first interactive poetry prompts offered on this website from the Northern Nevada Writing Project.

Writer Instructions:

In Japan, Haikus are valued for their lightness, simplicity, openness, and depth. These are some basic rules of Haiku:

use no more than 17 syllables.

arrange these in lines of 5-7-5 syllables

link the words to the natural word

retain Japanese values of lightness, simplicity, openness, and depth

focus on a memorable detail of the Haiku's topic

Dog Haiku
found at
http://www.yuckles.com/bellyup.htm

I lie belly-up
In sunshine, happier than
You ever will be.

Cat Haiku
found at http://strangeplaces.net/weirdthings/cathaiku.html

The mighty hunter
Returns with gifts of plump birds.
Your foot just squashed one.

Challenge yourself by devoting a page in your journal or your writer's notebook to "dueling haikus."

Select two topics that are seen as opposites and brainstorm five favorite details about each topic.

Choose your best detail about one topic, then create a seventeen-syllable "snapshot" of that topic, capturing the detail in a seventeen syllable poem.

Repeat the process for the second topic.

Place the poems side-by-side in your writer's notebook.

Select in Idea for your first Haiku
(then come up with an original "opposite topic" for your second haiku)

Teacher resources to use alongside this prompt:

WritingFix's Haiku Riddles Prompt

Simple Formula Poem: Dueling Haikus

This writing prompt generator was one of the first interactive poetry prompts offered on this website from the Northern Nevada Writing Project.

Writer Instructions:

Select in Idea for your first Haiku (then come up with an original "opposite topic" for your second haiku)

Simple Formula Poem:
Dueling Haikus

Select in Idea for your first Haiku
(then come up with an original "opposite topic" for your second haiku)