During the Heian period of Japanese culture (7001100), it was a social requirement to be able to

instantly recognize, appreciate and recite Japanese

and Chinese poetry. It was around this period that
short forms of poetry (tanka) grew in popularity
over long forms of poetry (choka). The rigid
lifestyles of the time carried over into art; every
poem had to have a specific form. The approved
form was the 5-7-5 triplet followed by a couplet of
seven syllables (this was the Japanese equivalent to
the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare's England).
From this form developed the renga (linked verse)
and the kusari-no-renga (chains of linked verse).
These forms were used almost as parlor games for
the elite. However, in the mid-sixteenth century
there began a rise in "peasant" poetry. It was then
that Japanese poetry underwent a rebirth in which
the staid forms of the past were replaced with a
lighter, airier tone. This new form was called haikai
and was later named renku.
Haikai consisted of a beginning triplet called a

hokku. The hokku was considered the most

important part of the poem. It had two principal
requirements: a seasonal word (kireji) and a "cutting
word" or exclamation.
The poet Basho infused a new sensibility and
sensitivity to this form in the late seventeenth
century. He transformed the poetics and turned the
hokku into an independent poem, later to be known
as haiku. Basho's work focused around the concept
of karumi (a feeling of lightness) -- so much so that
he abandoned the traditional syllabic limitations to
achieve it.
In "On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho", Lucien
Stryk wrote:
"Basho's mature haiku style, Shofu, is known not
only for karumi, but also for two other Zen-inspired
aesthetic ideals: sabi and wabi. Sabi implies
contented solitariness, and in Zen is associated
with early monastic experience, when a high
degree of detachment is cultivated. Wabi can be
described as the spirit of poverty, an appreciation

of the commonplace, and is perhaps most fully

achieved in the tea ceremony, which, from the
simple utensils used in the preparation of the tea
to the very structure of the tea hut, honours the
humble."

Basho also was one of the earliest proponents of

spontaneous prose. He believed in and preached the
concept of Shasei (on-the-spot composition and
tracing the subject to its origin). To give an idea of
his influence, a contemporary school of haiku,
Tenro, is popular all over Japan. It includes some
two thousand members all over the country who
meet at designated temples to write as many one
hundred haiku a day. The goal is to attempt to enter
objects and share the "delicate life and feelings."
Since the time of Basho, the history of haiku mirrors
the Zen ideal that it oftentimes relates. While it has
gone through many transformations, developments,
and revisions, good haiku today is surprisingly
similar as to when Basho developed the form in the
seventeenth century.

So what should haiku accomplish? What should it

provide the reader? According to the classic haiku
poets of Japan, haiku should present the reader
with an observation of a natural, commonplace
event, in the simplest words, without verbal
trickery. The effect of haiku is one of "sparseness".
It's a momentary snatch from time's flow,
crystallized and distilled. Nothing more.
Of all the forms of poetry, haiku perhaps is the most
demanding of the reader. It demands the reader's
participation because haiku merely suggests
something in the hopes that the reader will find "a
glimpse of hitherto unrecognized depths in the self."
Without a sensitive audience, haiku is nothing.
Two other major haiku poets, both of whom
followed in the tradition of Basho, were Buson and
Issa.
There is a growing tradition of western Haiku, and
Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac have brought
about a new awareness of the possibility of modern

Haiku.