Activities for Alzheimers
- Haiku Poetry -

Haiku poetry is a Japanese form of poetry that has changed over the centuries, but originally it focused on aspects of nature. There are more rules to traditional Haiku if you wish to follow them, but the ones below are the basics, and for the purpose of keeping a mind active they are sufficient.

How to write a Haiku poem
A Haiku poem is only 3 lines long, with no title. The length of each line is measured purely in syllables:
5 in the first line
7 in the second and 5 in the third.
To count the syllables, try clapping to each one as you speak the words aloud. I know it’s the way we learnt at Pre-school but I still haven’t found a better way to do it.

Examples of Haiku
(If you aren’t Australian, it maybe necessary to read these with an Australian accent to get the syllable count right, sorry.)

Clouds up high blow by
Floating on an angel’s breath
Gilded with pure light

If on the other hand you feel that’s a little too esoteric for you, haiku could just as easily be:

The cars all pass me
One by one, I stand and stare
Waiting for the lights

If you’re still having problems counting syllables have a look at how the first haiku poem divides up. Consider clapping once as you read out each section of words between the slashes.

Clouds / up / high / blow / by
Floa / ting / on / an / an / gel’s / breath
Gil / ded / with / pure / light


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