Japanese Garden, Woodley, North Hills, California

Classical Japanese poetry is called “waka,” from which “haiku” and “haikai” originated (Fry, p. 350). A haiku is a three-lined poem whose lines are composed of five, seven, and five syllables and its theme is reverence for life and the natural world; it is a “shasei,” or “sketch of nature” (Fry, p. 274). Source: Fry, Stephen. The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, Gotham Books, 2005.