Tom--
How far is it possible to go? Minimilist haiku--whether successful or not is up to the reader, of course--has gone as far as the single word. About 25 years ago, the word "tundra" in the middle of an otherwise empty page was presented as a haiku. (By Cor van den Heuvel, also of NYC, by the way.) Other single word "haiku" have been done since then, as you might expect. The limit is just where you suspect it might be: a blank page.
As far as more "reasonable"conventions are concerned, even the Japanese masters produced a significant number of hyper- or hypo-syllabic poems, so this practice of tinkering with the form goes back hundreds of years. Only people writing in English have somehow gotten the idea that 17 syllables is sacrosanct!
From my point of view, as an editor and as someone who has made a study of haiku, seeing a poem such as:
rain-weight:
a leaf uncups
drops
doesn't bother me in the least. Brevity, not a set number of syllables, is the essence of haiku form. You might also want to take a look at my postings on the "haiku form?" thread, as some also pertain to this issue.
My pleasure--thanks for asking.
Lee
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