Kamares Primary School: Greek-English Poetry and Artwork

Environmental Haikus

Environmental Haiku and Translation

The story about the Haiku

Ecological Haikus
By the students of Kamares Primary School,
Larnaka, Cyprus

The haikus were developed after students had read a Japanese story “Baku: The Eater of Dreams” written by Lafcadio Hearn. Each student then wrote a story about an environmental nightmare they had which involved planet earth and climate change. Then they chose specific words from their story and used them to write poems in the form of haiku, which is also a Japanese poem. Prior to writing their haikus, they were taught about haikus’ conventions such as the 5-7-5 syllable patterns, the needlessness of rhymes, the focus on emotion, colourful images and small animals. The students also read haikus of well-known Greek poets such as Giorgos Seferis and Japanese poets such as Masaoka Shiki who is also regarded as a major figure in the development of haiku poetry. Additionally, it must be mentioned that the translation in English made it a little difficult to follow the 5-7-5 syllable pattern.
Finally, the scenario of their film prepared for the Planet Festival, is consisted of 23 environmental haikus which are placed in a specific order by the students. Each haiku has a hidden message regarding earth, peoples’ attitude towards the environment and possible dangers for our planet soon.
Teacher: Sotiroula Stavrou