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SciFaiku ("science fiction haiku") is a form of science fiction poetry first announced by Tom Brinck with his treatise on the subject, The SciFaiku Manifesto (July 1995). Brinck has been referred to as the "Father of SciFaiku." SciFaiku is inspired by Japanese haiku, but explores science, science fiction (SF), and other speculative fiction themes, such as fantasy and horror. They are based on the principles and form of haiku but can deviate from its structure. Scifaiku follow three major principles – minimalism, immediacy and human insight:

Scifaiku follows the haiku model, including its spirit of minimalism. While traditional Japanese haiku usually has 3 phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on ("sound symbols"), haiku in English usually has seventeen (or fewer) syllables. Scifaiku is even more flexible and may be shorter or longer (allowing for longer technical terms, e. g. anisomorphism), although most often still written, as English language haiku, in three lines. Immediacy is the use of direct sensory perceptions to give a sense of being in the moment. Concrete, rather than abstract terms are used. Metaphor and allegory are rarely explicit though sometimes implied. Human insight comes from the idea that the purpose of much science fiction is to understand ourselves better through exploring possible futures or speculative realities.

There have been three different Internet scifaiku mailing lists in succession. These mailing lists have been the primary base for the writing and sharing of scifaiku on the internet. The original sciFaiku mailing list was a Univ. of Michigan based listserv (where Tom Brinck was in graduate school). The first post on the list was on 23 July 1996. Later on there was a mailing list organized through scifaiku. com (first post 15 February 1998). After problems with that mailing list server, the scifaiku list moved to Yahoo! Groups on 17 March 2001. As of 22 July 2006 there have been over 13,000 posts just on the scifaiku mailing list at Yahoo! Groups. From the home page: This group is for the writing and sharing of science fiction haiku (aka scifaiku). We also occasionally write similar genres, such as fantasy haiku and horror haiku. The members also write SF poems using other short poetry forms, such as waka, senryū, sijo, kanshi, etc. Group members have also created a few of their own poetry forms, such as the contrail and the Fibonacci No Haiku (based upon the Fibonacci number), written SF poetry based on other short poetry forms such as the cinquain, and experimented with a number of collaborative poetry forms such as science fiction renga and stellarenga.

The Science Fiction Poetry Association gives out the Dwarf Stars Award for the best short short speculative poem each year, including scifaiku and related short short science fictional poetry (defined as under ten lines in length). The nominees for the award are published in an annual anthology, Dwarf Stars.