That is true. If the poetry is written just right, written to bring out your inner-emotion letting one conqure it, and make peace, then yes, it is just like medation.

now that i think about it, Zen buddhists would write haiku as meditation. only problem is our society and completely taken haiku out of context for who it should sound, look, and be composed of.

I agree. It's hard to find out what such things used to truly be like due to the distortion over time imposed my modernization and such.
The only way to see what is was like is to find a book, unaltered, from that time period.

i've got some. in my world religions class (over summer) we studied buddhism for a while and my book had a short but decently detailed section on zen buddhism, which included a detail on different forms of meditation. haiku was one of these and there was even a direct and literal translation of a haiku from around the 1500's. i can't remember it precisely but i can post it in your shout section when i return to michigan in a week and can look it up in my book. from what i remember, the haiku was normally supposed to be about nature or your environment. what we are taught in school as the syllable structure of 5, 7, 5 is not entierly true to form. that works when writing in japanese but not something like english. that is the total number of characters per line that the haiku is made out of. each character has a sound (syllable) but each character is also like it's own word; that is the part that cannot be translated into english. this leads haiku and other forms of asian writing to have a multiplicity of meanings and interpretations.
the general true structure and meaning of haiku's should sound something more like...

Lake in front.
Fish swim and jump.
Ripples spread out.

that does not hold true to the way we are taught to write haiju but would probably be correct if written in japanese. it is also more cryptic than europeon poetry that our haiku's are often made to mimic.

Oh wow. Thats insane.
Thats the problem with translating texts. The true meaning and feel of the writing is never fully replicated with the translation.

indeed. although i'm not sure if i'd say "insane". you make it sound like something totally different or extreme.^^;

Yeah. I know. >_>
my brain thinks differently. *shrugs*

it was something i only noticed several years ago when i would get depressed and write what was often dark poems. seeing someone else do the same thing on fa lately make me realize how close to meditation it was (since i do meditate on occasion).