Create a Harlem Renaissance Haiku

For this activity, you can choose to work by yourself or with a partner.

You will be looking at some artwork from the Harlem Renaissance and using it to inspire a haiku (or two). If you are working by yourself, you will browse the artwork at the end of this post and select ONE of the pieces that you want to describe in a haiku. If you are working with a partner, you will select TWO pieces of artwork and you will work together to write one haiku about each of the art pieces.

Each art piece is labeled with a letter. When you decide on the piece (or pieces) you will use, create a comment to this post and write your haiku or haikus in that comment. Please label each haiku with the letter of the art piece it is about. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR NAME IS IN THE POST AS WELL (if you are working with a partner, please make sure BOTH of your names are in the comment). I have an example comment for you to look at and make sure you're doing this correctly.

In order to do this, you must understand what a haiku is.

A haiku is a three line poem that describes something in great detail. A haiku has a total of 17 syllables in the poem. The first line has five syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and the third line has five syllables.

Here are a few examples to show you what they look and sound like:

"Transcendentalism" by Mrs. Sampson

Trickling rivers

and coniferous forests

delighted Thoreau

"Gothicism" by Mrs. Sampson

Dark, eerie pathways

"Realism" by Mrs. Sampson

The dirty floor boards

in the broken down farm house

were lovely to Twain.

Here are the art pieces you can pick from to inspire your haikus:

A: "Parade" by Jacob Lawrence

B: "Blues" by Archibald Motely

C: "Nightlife" by Archibald Motely

D: "Sahdji" by Aaron Douglas

E: "Banjo Lesson" by Dox Thrash