Haiku About Art and Music

Many of the art and music poems here are about mistakes. Devrie Paradowski admires a STUNNING ASCENT and SUCH AURAL LIFT, then notes that the last note was PLAYED INCORRECTLY. David Capps overhears someone TRYING TO FIND AN ART in a pot BROKEN AT HER FEET. Clarise Samuels looks at ROMAN STATUES, armless and BEHEADED, and calls what is left majesty. Jesse Thompson goes all the way: each new coat of paint is ADDED TO ERASE MISTAKES and the goal is only to ATTEMPT BEAUTY.

Art in the world

Judith Lechner looks up at a TWILIGHT SKY and thinks HOKUSAI MIGHT HAVE PAINTED THOSE BLACK BIRDS FLYING. Nancy May files an afternoon stroll under AT THE ART GALLERY and puts it in a bluebell field, a picture hung in the open air. Roberta Beach Jacobson’s CANVAS OF CLOUDS is ART FOR THE MASSES, painted in white on blue.

Craft and sound

Jackie Maugh Robinson hears SOFT CLACKS and sees hands that CARESS THE LOOM. The weaving is music, and the loom is the instrument.

Music in the house

Rich Glinnen hears DRAGGING CHAIRS UPSTAIRS as something that sounds like VIOLINS YAWNING behind a curtain, and Mary Gunn catches A RECOGNIZABLE TUNE drifting down the stairs, with yellow tulips for company.

Naming an artist

A named artist is a shortcut. Say Hokusai and a reader sees waves or a bridge or a flight of birds. It is a cheap trick unless the poem earns it, and Lechner’s does, because the birds are really there.

Questions readers ask

Is it fine to name a real artist in a haiku?

Yes. A name brings a whole style with it, and a haiku has little space for description. The risk is that the name does all the work.

Do music poems sound different from art poems?

Often. The music poems lean on sound words, and the art poems lean on color and shape. The loom, the violin and the dragged chairs all give the lines something to hear.

More themes to read

Writing and PoetryFaith and SpiritNatureEvening and NightFood and DrinkAll themes

Last reviewed November 2026. Poems are the work of the poets credited and link to their pages in the original issues.