According to Higginson, it is simplistic to say that a haiku has 17 syllables in three lines of 5-7-5. Japanese poets do not count syllables but onji, sound symbols reflecting phonetic characters. For example, manyoshu has three syllables but six onji. Traditional haiku have two rhythmical units, one of about 12 onji and one of about five, the break between them often marked with a kireji, or cutting word. As the break between the two units can occur after the first five onji or the first twelve, the normal rhythm is 5-7-5 onji. The traditional haiku (hokku)form originated in the incomplete opening stanza of a longer poem, a renga, and the haiku form is rhythmically incomplete. Haiku often omit features of normal grammar, such as complete sentences and complicated verb endings. All this means that although there are both Western and Japanese 17-syllable, three-line 5-7-5 haiku, as well as many other haiku-type poems which adhere neither to this convention nor to the strict traditional Japanese form, there is far more to the construction of such a poem than has been assumed by teachers such as me and taught to generations of English-speaking schoolchildren.
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