Although I write and publish poetry on my blog for several reasons—one being simply to sharpen my writing ax—I have discovered a hidden benefit: the use of my thesaurus has increased dramatically.
Because of the (somewhat self-imposed) restrictions of writing haiku in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern, I nearly always have to consider several different words choices that will fit this pattern—and for this, there is nothing better than a thesaurus.
So thanks Haiku, for increasing my use and skill with this invaluable tool. It’s now starting to bleed over into both my fiction and non-fiction writing projects.