Thinking of Baja

Not quite, but beautiful nontheless ...

Haiku (俳句, haikai verse?) listen (help·info), plural haiku, is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 moras (or on), in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 moras respectively.[1] Although haiku are often stated to have 17 syllables,[2] this is inaccurate as syllables and moras are not the same. Haiku typically contain a kigo (seasonal reference), and a kireji (cutting word). In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English usually appear in three lines, to parallel the three phrases of Japanese haiku.[3] Previously called hokku, haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century.

[edit] Kireji and kigo
Main articles: Kireji and Kigo
In Japanese haiku a kireji, or cutting word, typically appears at the end of one of the verse's three phrases. A kireji fills a role somewhat analagous to a caesura in classical western poetry or to a volta in sonnets. It lends the verse structural support,[4] effectively allowing it to stand as an independent poem. Depending on which cutting word is chosen, and its position within the verse, it may briefly cut the stream of thought, suggesting a parallel between the preceding and following phrases, or it may provide a dignified ending, concluding the verse with a heightened sense of closure.[5]

In English, since kireji have no direct equivalent, poets sometimes use punctuation such as a dash or ellipsis, or an implied break, to divide a haiku into two grammatical and imagistic[citation needed] parts. The purpose is to create a juxtaposition, prompting the reader to reflect on the relationship between the two parts.

The kireji in the Bashō examples below are, respectively, "ya", "ya" (や and "wo" (を.

A haiku traditionally contains a kigo, a defined word or phrase that symbolizes or implies the season of the poem.

Kigo are often in the form of metonyms and hence can be difficult for those who lack Japanese cultural references to spot. The Bashō examples include "kawazu", literally "frog" but implying spring time (when frogs emerge into the paddy fields) [6] and "shigure", a rain shower in late autumn or early winter.

Among traditionalist Japanese haiku writers, kireji and kigo are considered requirements of the form. Kigo are not always included in non-Japanese haiku or by modern writers of Japanese "free-form" haiku.

[edit] Syllables or "on" in haiku
Main article: Onji
In contrast to English verse typically characterized by meter, Japanese verse counts sound units (moras), known as "on". The word on is often translated as "syllable", but there are subtle differences between an "on" and an English-language "syllable". Traditional haiku consist of 17 on, in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively.

The word onji (音字; "sound symbol") is sometimes used in referring to Japanese sound units in English[7] although this word is archaic and no longer current in Japanese.[8] In Japanese, the on corresponds to the kana character count and hence moji (or "character symbol") is also sometimes used[8] as the count unit.

One on is counted for a short syllable, an additional one for an elongated vowel, diphthong, or doubled consonant, and one for an "n" at the end of a syllable. Thus, the word "haibun", though counted as two syllables in English, is counted as four on in Japanese (ha-i-bu-n). In addition, some sounds, such as "kyo" (きょ are perceived as two syllables in English but as a single mora in Japanese. A word that illustrates both these issues is "Tokyo", which is perceived as having three syllables in English (To-ky-o) but four moras in Japanese (To-o-kyo-o).

Most writers of literary haiku in English use seventeen or fewer syllables.[9][10]

[edit] Examples
Possibly the best known Japanese haiku is Bashō's "old pond":
古池や　蛙飛込む　水の音
furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
This separates into on as:

fu-ru-i-ke ya (5)
ka-wa-zu to-bi-ko-mu (7)
mi-zu no o-to (5)
Translated:[11]

old pond . . .
a frog leaps in
water’s sound

Two more haiku by Bashō:[12]




富士の風や　扇にのせて　江戸土産
fuji no kaze ya ōgi ni nosete Edo miyage
the wind of Mt. Fuji
I've brought on my fan!
a gift from Edo



初しぐれ　猿も小蓑を　ほしげ也
hatsu shigure saru mo komino wo hoshige nari
the first cold shower
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw
[edit] Origin and development
[edit] From renga to renku to haiku
Main articles: Renga and Renku
Hokku is the opening stanza of an orthodox collaborative linked poem, or renga, and of its later derivative, renku (or haikai no renga). By the time of Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694), the hokku had begun to appear as an independent poem, and was also incorporated in haibun (a combination of prose and hokku), and haiga (a combination of painting with hokku). In the late 19th century, Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) renamed the standalone hokku to haiku.[13] The latter term is now generally applied retrospectively to all hokku appearing independently of renku or renga, irrespective of when they were written, and the use of the term hokku to describe a standalone poem is considered obsolete,[14] although this approach has been challenged.[15]

[edit] Bashō and independent hokku
Main articles: Matsuo Bashō and Hokku
In the 1600s, two masters arose who elevated haikai and gave it a new popularity. They were Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) and Ueshima Onitsura (1661–1738). Hokku is the first verse of the collaborative haikai or renku, but its position as the opening verse made it the most important, setting the tone for the whole composition. Even though hokku had sometimes appeared individually, they were always understood in the context of renku.[16] The Bashō school promoted standalone hokku by including many in their anthologies, thus giving birth to what is now called 'haiku'. Bashō also used his hokku as torque points within his short prose sketches and longer travel diaries. This sub-genre of haikai is known as haibun.[17] His best-known book, Oku no Hosomichi, or Narrow Roads to the Interior, is counted as one of the classics of Japanese literature[18] and has been translated into English extensively.

Bashō was deified by both the imperial government and Shinto religious headquarters one hundred years after his death because he raised the haikai genre from a playful game of wit to sublime poetry. He continues to be revered as a saint of poetry in Japan, and is the one name from classical Japanese literature that is familiar throughout the world.[19]

[edit] Time of Buson

Grave of Yosa BusonThe next famous style of haikai to arise was that of Yosa Buson (1716–1783) and others such as Kitō, called the Tenmei style after the Tenmei Era (1781–1789) in which it was created. Buson attempted to revive the values of Bashō, and rescue haiku and renku from the stultified condition into which it had sunk since Bashō's day.[20]

Buson is recognised as one of the greatest masters of haiga (an art form where painting is combined with haiku or haikai prose). His affection for painting can be seen in the painterly style of his haiku.[21]

[edit] Kobayashi Issa's humanistic approach
No new popular style followed Buson. However, a very individualistic, and at the same time humanistic, approach to writing haiku was demonstrated by the poet Kobayashi Issa (1763–1827), whose miserable childhood, poverty, sad life, and devotion to the Pure Land sect of Buddhism are evident in his poetry. Issa made the genre immediately accessible to wider audiences.

[edit] Shiki's revisions
Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) was a reformer and revisionist. A prolific writer, even though chronically ill during a significant part of his life, Shiki disliked the ‘stereotype’ haikai writers of the 19th century who were known by the deprecatory term tsukinami, meaning ‘monthly’, after the monthly or twice-monthly haikai gatherings of the end of the 18th century (in regard to this period of haikai, it came to mean ‘trite’ and ‘hackneyed’). Shiki also criticized Bashō[citation needed]. Like the Japanese intellectual world in general at that time, Shiki was strongly influenced by Western culture. He favored the painterly style of Buson and particularly the European concept of plein-air painting, which he adapted to create a style of haiku as a kind of nature sketch in words, an approach called shasei, literally ‘sketching from life’. He popularized his views by verse columns and essays in newspapers.

Hokku up to the time of Shiki, even when appearing independently, were written in the context of renku.[16] Shiki formally separated his new style of verse from the context of collaborative poetry. Being agnostic,[22] he also separated it from the influence of Buddhism. Further, he discarded the term "hokku" and proposed the term haiku as an abbreviation of the phrase "haikai no ku" meaning a verse of haikai,[23] although the term predates Shiki by some two centuries, when it was used to mean any verse of haikai.[24] Since then, "haiku" has been the term usually applied in both Japanese and English to all independent haiku, irrespective of their date of composition. Shiki's revisionism dealt a severe blow to renku and surviving haikai schools. The term "hokku" is now used chiefly in its original sense of the opening verse of a renku, and rarely to distinguish haiku written before Shiki's time.[25]

[edit] Senryū
Main article: Senryū
Senryū is a poem that is written in a similar form and emphasizes irony, satire, humor, and human foibles rather than seasons; it may or may not contain a kigo and kireji.

[edit] Haibun
Main article: Haibun
Haibun is a combination of prose and haiku, often autobiographical or written in the form of a travel journal.

[edit] Haiga
Main article: Haiga
Haiga is a style of Japanese painting based on the aesthetics of haikai, and usually including a haiku. Today, haiga artists combine haiku with paintings, photographs and other art.

[edit] Kuhi
The carving of famous haiku on natural stone to make poem monuments known as kuhi (句碑 has been a popular practice for many centuries. The city of Matsuyama has more than two hundred kuhi.

[edit] Haiku movement in the West
The earliest westerner known to have written haiku was the Dutchman Hendrik Doeff (1764-1837), who was the Dutch commissioner in the Dejima trading post in Nagasaki, during the first years of the 19th century.[26] One of his haiku:[27]

inazuma no
kaina wo karan
kusamakura lend me your arms,
fast as thunderbolts,
for a pillow on my journey.

Although there were further attempts outside Japan to imitate the "hokku" in the early 1900s, there was little understanding of its principles. Early Western scholars such as Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935) and William George Aston were mostly dismissive of hokku's poetic value. One of the first advocates of English-language hokku was the Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. In "A Proposal to American Poets," published in the Reader magazine in February 1904, Noguchi gave a brief outline of the hokku and some of his own English efforts, ending with the exhortation, "Pray, you try Japanese Hokku, my American poets!" At about the same time the poet Sadakichi Hartmann was publishing original English-language hokku, as well as other Japanese forms in both English and French.

In France, haiku was introduced by Paul-Louis Couchoud around 1906. Couchoud's articles were read by early Imagist theoretician F. S. Flint, who passed on Couchoud's (somewhat idiosyncratic) ideas to other members of the proto-Imagist Poets' Club such as Ezra Pound. Amy Lowell made a trip to London to meet Pound and find out about haiku. She returned to the United States where she worked to interest others in this "new" form. Haiku subsequently had a considerable influence on Imagists in the 1910s, notably Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" of 1913, but, notwithstanding several efforts by Yone Noguchi to explain "the hokku spirit," there was as yet little understanding of the form and its history.

A translation of Bashō's Oku no Hosomichi to Spanish was done in 1957 by the Mexican poet and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz in collaboration with Japanese diplomat Eikichi Hayashiya.

Ron