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April Haiku Challenge

Share Your Poetry Skills!

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? Writers around the world celebrate by participating in NaPoWriMo, a project that encourages poets to write at least one poem each day in April. We’re a few days late, but we still want to encourage poetry writing by hosting a friendly haiku challenge for our HubPages authors! 

What Is a Haiku?

As HubPages author Linda Crampton describes in her article " Haiku and Three-Line Nature Poems: Facts and Examples," haiku poetry originated in Japan and typically follows a 5/7/5 syllable pattern. This means that the poems consist of three lines, with five syllables in the first, seven syllables in the second, and five syllables in the third. 

Here is an example:

here at HubPages
we share our minds’ overflow 
write, publish, repeat

If you'd like more haiku examples, see the end of Linda's article above, or visit thehaikufoundation.org.

How to Join the Challenge

To participate, write a haiku (or several haikus) about springtime and submit them to our team by using this Google Form. You may include multiple poems in one submission as long as they follow the syllable rules listed above. Submissions are permitted until Tuesday, April 11th, at 12:00 PM PST. 

Please note: There are no prizes for the winners of this haiku challenge. However, those selected by our team will be featured in next week’s newsletter, and they will earn lifelong bragging rights!

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How to Use Ratings Capsules

Ratings capsules are great tools for quickly summarizing your opinion about a product, restaurant, book, movie, event, or experience, and they are also helpful when readers want to leave their own reviews on something you're sharing with them (like a recipe or how-to guide). However, there are some particular rules one must follow when including review capsules in their articles. Here is a quick reminder of how not to use ratings capsules. 

Tips for Ratings Capsule Use

• If more than one subject is written about in the article, don't use the ratings capsule. It may be unclear to the reader which item is being rated.
• "Rate this article" capsules (also known as "meta capsules") are not allowed. If you would like thoughts or feedback on the quality of your article, post it in our HubPages forum. 
• Do not include ratings capsules for items that are irrelevant to your article (i.e., if you are writing a piece about how to walk your dog in the rain, do not ask your readers to rate the most recent Avatar movie.) 

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faresalhakim, From Damascus, 7 Fans, 6 Hubs, Joined 5 weeks ago

Fresh Face of HubPages

This week’s fresh face of HubPages is Fares al-Hakim! Fares is a medical student from Syria and writes on topics ranging from social issues to historical biographies. Since joining HubPages five weeks ago, their articles have been published on four different network sites! Check out their pieces about Mavia, Queen of the Tanukhids and Women's Rights in Pre-Islamic Arabia. 

The views and opinions expressed in this section
do not necessarily reflect those of HubPages.