This simple and new poetic form created by Eileen Tabios in 2003 is both a good form to get creative juices flowing and one that can “stump” you when trying to get perfect phrasing to create meaning from something so elementary. But don’t let the form hang you up (see below).

Like a Haiku, the form is three lines, but the similarities end there. The first line is one word, the second is two, and the third is three words. No rhyming pattern or meter rules apply.

Variations include starting with three words in line one, and stepping down to two and one word lines. Another variation is having poems with three-line stanzas strung together to form longer poems.

Vince Gotera proposed the name “hay(na)ku”, as a pun on haiku. It corresponds to a Tagalog phrase meaning “Oh my!” Hay(na)ku is pronounced: ai-na-koo.

“Just because you start with the intention of writing a Hay(na)ku, you do not have to keep your poem in that form if it does not work for you. Your attempt to write a formal poem may help you find words that you would not have found otherwise. And you may decide that you choose to end up with a poem in a different form, perhaps even a prose poem.”  (The Hay(na)ku Verse Form, a 21st century poetry form. by J. Zimmerman, http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/haynaku.htm)