Özet:

Haiku is originally a Japanese short form of poetry with three lines and seventeen syllables. It is a momentary poem containing nature allusions or depictions of the environment, impressions and emotions and also an element of insight or surprise. This concise form of poetry became famous internationally more than a century ago and it is still highly popular. Thousands of people write haiku and participate in haiku meetings and competitions globally. In recent years, Tatar language haiku poetry has become an integral part of multilingual haiku activities of a group based in Finland. The poems are discussed during online meetings alongside other languages and mixed-language poetry. They are then published on a specialised website, Haiku Colorit. Within only a short time, the original Tatar haiku poems have gained a following of hundreds of readers. Encouragement of creativity is the foundation for these activities, but parallel with writing also the translation activities are important. The haiku poems are published with translations in at least two but often four or five languages on the website. Writing, translating and editing poems are activities which develop language skills. Haiku poetry is also used worldwide for language learning. The short poems are easy to understand and readers receive a feeling of success while reading. For language learners the poems are useful tools for acquisition of vocabulary and for expression and translation exercises. Writing original poems also activate and support the development of language knowledge in a new language. Experiences gathered globally and by the Haiku Colorit team through innovative language teaching, introduction of haiku poems into schoolbooks and work with migrants show that the short poems are an easy and quick gateway to learning and creating motivation for acquisition of a new language. This article documents several aspects of the use of haiku poetry. The haiku poem and its goals; form and contents; writing and creating haiku in Tatar; translation; language learning with haiku poetry; and recent developments and innovative practices using haiku poems as a path to support and inspire language users and learners are presented. Part I provides an overview of haiku poetry by Sabira Stahlberg, with examples in Tatar, English, Finnish and Hungarian from the Haiku Colorit online meetings and poems published online. A first-hand description of original Tatar language haiku poetry writing, editing and challenges before a haiku poet are presented by Fazile Nasretdin in Part II. Orsolya Kiss analyses haiku poetry as a tool for language learning in Part III. The aim of this threepart article is to map out how haiku poetry can be used in widely different contexts to support, develop and teach a language.