I haven't posted in so long. I've been working on the MangaOption! game, which is now turning out to be more like a visual novel. The first chapter should be up soon! Anyway.... I had to do a project in school, I chose to do it on Haiku!
Basho
“Lightning flash—
what I thought were faces
are plumes of pampas grass.”
what I thought were faces
are plumes of pampas grass.”
-Basho
What is Haiku? Is it simply a poem with three lines in it? Would you ever associate Haiku with the spirituality of Buddhism? Haiku is so much more than just a poem. Many people can write Haiku, but not many people can tell you how Haiku came to be. Haiku is an extremely short type of Japanese poetry that can take years to master. Haiku has three lines, and seventeen syllables with a 5-7-5 syllable count. The poem tries to focus on one significant moment in time. In the Haiku above, written by Basho, he tries to focus in on a lightning flash.
Haiku is closely related to the spirituality of Buddhism, and Yugen. Yugen is an appreciation of beauty and art in Japan. Yugen suggests things, and doesn’t state them directly, much like a Haiku. Only a few words can suggest the true meaning of what hasn’t been said. It aims to open up inner thoughts and feelings. It focuses on one particular moment, and describes it just enough to understand, but little enough so it is open to interpretation. Because everything in Haiku is usually suggested, it can take years and years to master this Japanese art form.
Haiku is taken from another Japanese form of poem, tanka. Tanka is a poem made up of the rhyme scheme 5-7-5-7-7. Most tanka was written to explore the themes of religion or being proper. It was a popular thing to link tanka verses together. One person would write the first line of 5-7-5, and the next person would write the next 7-7 line of the poem. After that, the poem would continue in a constant line of 5-7-5-7-7, 5-7-5-7-7. Lines of a tanka could go on for thousands and thousands of lines of poetry. Linking the verses was known as renga.
Hokku (hok-oo) is the starting line in Haiku (in Japanese, Hokku literally means,”starting verse”. Hokku starts the theme and the tone for the rest of the short poem. Authors of hokku were greatly respected among other poets. Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) was mainly responsible for hokku being read as a single poem, even shorter than haiku. Hokku is where the word haiku comes from.
Basho, Buson and Issa lived in Japan’s Edo Period; the Edo period was from 1600 – 1868. They were considered great masters of Hokku. Their work still influences how people write haiku today. They were born in rural villages. All of them spent years perfecting their poetry. They were poet-wanders. Poet-wanders roam around the land, and try to experience the words they write before they are written, a long Japanese tradition.
Basho is the father of Haiku. When he was young, he studied Taoism and classical Chinese poetry. When he first began to write poetry, he only wrote according to the “rules” of writing poetry. Japanese poetry at that time had an elegant, refined style. Basho eventually broke free of these “rules” and became a poet-wanderer. He kept a journal of many of the things that he experienced.
Today, Haiku is still one of the popular forms of poetry to write. Even today, many people are still influenced by haiku. The poem is short, and yet so full of meaning, many people read haiku to get caught up in a single moment and try to understand it. In almost every country there is a haiku society. There are many books and websites all about haiku. Many English speakers have adapted haiku writing to their own style and have changed things in the traditional form to fit their form of a haiku, like using things in the poem that are common today, but would not have been common when haiku was first made. English also has very different grammar and words than Japanese, and an English haiku with seventeen syllables can sound like they’re saying to much.
One of the most important aspects of haiku is that it aims to capture a satori (a single, amazing moment). Haiku contains simple, and direct language, and not abstract words. Haiku contains a kigo, a kigo is an image of nature that is usually in the first or third line.
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