I know very little really about the technical end of what makes haiku, haiku. If I were to evaulate myself I'd say I am an interested amateur, but as with all my writing I have no formal training beyond whatever they taught me in school. Aside from the 5-7-5 format (which, if one wants to *really* get technical, isn't quite something that properly translates from the Japanese to western alphabet), I know "real" haiku is supposed to deal with nature in some way, or the place of humans in relation to nature... I think in terms of "serious" haiku that there's more to the format than it generally gets credit for. I'm not usually one for overly strucured poetry. Most of what I write is intentionally very free versed, and raw. But the structure of haiku, for whatever reason, appeals to me much more so than most structured poetry. I'm not even sure if my collecting several verses together as I've done here to essentially build a larger piece is even technically "correct".

As with most things Japanese, there's a certain philosophy that is supposed to accompany the act. I won't pretend to truly have an understanding of it on that level. Though I find Japan, as a culture, quite interesting.

When I do write poetry, what I go after is a feeling or an emotion... I find the short length of haiku a challenging model for that, and I like writing them very much.

That got a lot longer than I intended and I don't know if I even answered the question, but there it is.