Interview with Gary Gach–Question 3–Do you consider haiku to be poetry like other forms?

3 Do you consider haiku to be poetry like other forms? 

Well, I never say, “haiku poetry,” as I hear some people do. Is there such a thing? If so, how about “sonnet poetry”? A case could be made for haiku not being poetry, at all. It doesn’t rhyme. There’s no meter. 99% are invariably untitled. They don’t deal in intellect, per se. Rarely do we see figures of speech. They don’t necessarily begin from any intention. And so on. Seen through the lens of poetry, they are certainly a special case. I sometimes think of haiku as a singular practice of a kind of phenomenology, rather than poetry.

 The argument seems similar to whether or not Buddhism is a religion. Buddhism has no creator deity, no First Cause, no punishment nor reward, etc. Yet it answers the spiritual needs which religion in general is called to do. 

How’s this? – If poetry puts language under the lens of a magnifying glass, haiku looks at poetics (what makes poetry so) through an electron microscope.