What are the benefits of composing haiku? Like exercise, meditation, yoga and taichi, it's a way to relieve stress. Like a photograph, it's shareable. It is a wonderful way to remember a particular moment that was pleasurable or to capture a feeling in images. Such as this one:
Tuesday moon
light falling into water
no splash
One of the wonderful things about composing—and reading—haiku: it helps us to pay attention to the world around us. It calls us to see the small things we often miss, such as that butterfly that appeared out of nowhere. With haiku, we can recapture some of the wonder we experienced when we were six.
Unless otherwise noted, the haiku in this guide are the work of the author.