APR 5, Japan Visit: haiku poems

 

CLASSIC JAPANESE HAIKU POETRY

apparently ... (articles on'haiku' and 'haiku in English' at Wikipedia are very helpful)

- 17 Japanese syllables in a terse, non-rhyming format; typically, they do not have a title

- often evokes a transient moment in nature, or a seasonal reference (kigo)

- may include a kireji (cutting- or break-word) underlying the relation, often dissonant, between the human and natural worlds

- ideas may be arranged in a 7-,5-,7- syllable grouping, but the poem is usually written in one line (often vertically)

- developed during the 17th century from a linked verse-introduction format known as hokku; the derived term haiku came into use only after 1900.

- the four greatest creators of Japanese haiku are generally taken to be:

Matsuo Basho, late 17th century, and subsequently Yosa Buson, eighteenth century), Kayaboshi Issa (1763-1828) and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902).

Basho's final haiku, 1694

- haiku gatherings and haiku contests persist as a major part of Japanese cultural life

TRANSLATED HAIKU, and inspired English derivations

- 17 syllables originally seen as optimal

- the 7-, 5-, 7- groupings are highlighted, each occupying a line in a 3-line rhymeless verse

- however, the translator may choose to honour the meaning, rather than the syllable count; often, the English can be expressed in fewer syllables than the Japanese original 

e.g.  "The Old Pond", Matsuo Basho

An ancient pool
A frog jumps in -- 
The sound of water.    

here, the translator chose
to format his  English renderings
In FOUR lines!

- in translation, 'hokku' poems first appeared in English-language literary reviews after 1877

- the "first fully realized haiku in English" was created by Ezra Pound who reduced a 30-line projected piece to a single sentence in his 1913 creation "In a Station of the Metro"

- inspired by its relation to Eastern culture, and Zen in particular, haiku became a form of terse but poignant poetry exploited by the 'beat poets' of the 1950s/60s like Jack Kerouac, later by Richard Wright and others.

LIMERICKS about HAIKU POEMS

SPOOF VARIANT: PALINKU, by Giorgio Coniglio

Please refer to the post of August 17, 2020.

an example

Hunting around this blogsite, you can find 60 or so palinku verses!

TODAY'S HAIKU (re)VERSE

 haiku variant 

(3 terse lines; each reverses) --

name it "palinku".

Giorgio Coniglio