HAIKU

JAPANESE LITERATURE
 HISTORY OF HAIKU
• During the Heian period of Japanese culture (700-1100), 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.
• 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.
 OUR FRIENDSHIP
BY: Leonora Galinta
You’re my precious gift
From Him, I gladly received
I praise and thank Him

When you talk to me

Time is no longer lonely
Night seems like a day
You’re an awesome friend
A sister to me as well
Two-in-one God’s gift

Your knowledge and skills

Always unselfishly shared
Your praise: mind tonic
 My inspiration
In all my writing passions
You have touch my life

Though you’re far away

In my thoughts and in my prayer
You are here to stay
 Moments that we have
Be kept in my treasure box
I thank you so much

May our friendship lasts

As I keep you in my heart
Forever you’re loved
 Matsuo Basho
in (1644-1694), considered the greatest haiku poet:

An old silent pond...

A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.
Autumn moonlight—
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut.
In the twilight rain
these brilliant-hued hibiscus -
A lovely sunset.
 Masaoka Shiki
in (1867-1902), credited with reviving the haiku and developing
its modern format:
I want to sleep
Swat the flies
Softly, please.
After killing
a spider, how lonely I feel
in the cold of night!
For love and for hate
I swat a fly and offer it
to an ant.
 A mountain village
under the piled-up snow
the sound of water.
Night; and once again,
the while I wait for you, cold wind
turns into rain.
The summer river:
although there is a bridge, my horse
goes through the water.
A lightning flash:
between the forest trees
I have seen water.
MODERN HAIKU