There are several definitions of a haiku, but the most prominent of them is the simplest:
poem with three lines
and seventeen syllables:
five beats, seven, five.
Some purists say haiku can only exist in Japanese; others say that haiku must clearly relate to the natural world. A traditional haiku contains a kireji, or “cutting word,” at the end of one of its lines, as well as a kigo, a word that implies the season. Non-traditional haiku, however, have almost eclipsed traditional ones in popularity, both in Japan and out of it.
An accidental haiku is a segment of writing that’s not originally presented as haiku, but still hits the five-seven-five rhythm. As I define it, even a non-traditional haiku has a couple of other qualities that make it a poem, not just a clipping of text. It should be complete in itself, provide a feeling of insight, and offer a twist of some sort. You’d think all that wouldn’t be too hard to find, but meaning doesn’t often emerge in the rhythm we’d like it to.
However, it’s possible to analyze texts by syllable count. A program can certainly “read” text and find the sentences (or groups of sentences) that fit a 5-7-5-beat rhythm. I found an online tool for this, developed by Jonathan Feinberg…
And I may have ruined it for everyone else.
Because it seems like Feinberg took it down from his site not long after I ran a bunch of texts through it. This would have been back in 2020, when I was still laying out the Ubercross Abecedaria H grid. Maybe I put too much strain on the server? The original program for it still exists on GitHub, but for those of us who aren’t so great with Python, that’s not much help.
I haven’t been able to find any other online tools to replace it, nor any programs I can download and get working on my Windows box. Because of this, the only really good examples I can talk about are the ones I found back in 2020. So be alert: tomorrow’s update will be an extra spoilery Sunday!