The American Sentence:
A 17‑syllable American poetic form created by Allen Ginsberg
Origins:
The American Sentence was invented by Allen Ginsberg in the early 1980s as a deliberate response to the way English-language poets had been imitating Japanese **haiku**. Ginsberg believed that the traditional 5–7–5syllable structure of haiku, when transplanted into English, became rigid and artificial. Instead, he proposed a form that preserved haiku’s 17-syllable total but adapted it to American speech and syntax.
What Ginsberg Wanted—Ginsberg’s goals included:
A haiku for American prosody— linear, left-to-right, like American writing habits.
A single grammatical sentence— not three lines, but one breath, one thought, one moment.
Compression and clarity— he encouraged cutting filler words like *a* and *the*
Mindfulness — he saw the form as a way to capture fleeting, vivid moments of perception, influenced by his Buddhist practice.
First Publications:
Ginsberg published a small set of American Sentences in his 1994 book Cosmopolitan Greetings, where he offered examples drawn from daily life, often with brief scene-setting notes followed by a single 17‑syllable sentence capturing the moment. (examples below).
Philosophical Roots
The form reflects:
Beat aesthetics — immediacy, spontaneity, attention to the present.
Buddhist insight — awareness of transience and the sacredness of ordinary moments.
American vernacular — the rhythms of everyday speech rather than the inherited metrics of Japanese poetry.
How the Form Works:
– Exactly 17 syllables
– One sentence*(though it can be grammatically loose)
– No required seasonal word, juxtaposition, or nature theme
– Can be used singly or as a sequence of discrete, non-narrative stanzas
Immediate sensory details:
Capturing sights, sounds, and feelings in real-time.
Juxtaposition:
Placing ordinary scenes next to deeper reflections or cultural observations.
“Show, don’t tell”:
Use precise imagery to evoke emotion rather than stating it directly.
Examples From Ginsberg Himself:
“Four skinheads stand in the streetlight rain chatting under an umbrella.”
“Rainy night on Union square, full moon. Want more poems? Wait till I’m dead.”
“Put on my tie in a taxi, short of breath, rushing to meditate.”
“Crescent moon, girls chatter at twilight on the bus ride to Ankara.”
“That gray-haired man in business suit and black turtleneck thinks he’s still young.”
Suggested Exercises:
Write several American Sentences of your own until you feel you get it.
Try adapting an old poem into American Sentences.
Write three or more American Sentences that, together, form a single poem.
If you journal, add an American Sentence to your journal each day. Use them as raw material for later poems.
Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle 