Nice sentiment, but a haiku? More senryu Haiku (俳句, Haiku?) listen (help·info) is a kind of
Japanese poetry. Previously called
hokku, it was given its current name by the Japanese writer
Masaoka Shiki at the end of 19th century. Shiki suggested
haiku as an abbreviation of the phrase "
haikai no ku" meaning a verse of
haikai[1]. A
hokku was the opening verse of a linked verse form,
renku (
haikai no renga). In Japanese, hokku and haiku are traditionally printed in one vertical line (though in handwritten form they may be in any reasonable number of lines). In English, haiku are usually written in three lines to equate to the three metrical phrases of a haiku in Japanese that consist of five, seven, and five
on (the Japanese count
morae, which differ from English-language syllables; for example, the word "haiku" itself counts as three
on in Japanese (ha-i-ku), but two syllables in English (hai-ku); writing seventeen syllables in English produces a poem that is actually quite a bit longer, with more content, than a haiku in Japanese).
In Japanese haiku a
kireji (i.e. a
cutting word) appears at the end of one of the three phrases. In Japanese, there are actual kireji words, which act as a sort of spoken punctuation (for example, the "ya" in Bashō's "furuike ya" poem is a kireji). In English, kireji has no direct equivalent. Instead, English-language poets often use commas, dashes, ellipses, or implied breaks to divide the three lines into two grammatical and imagistic parts. Such a division is usually placed at the end of either the first or second line; very rarely they can be found in the middle of the second line. The purpose is to create a juxtaposition, which creates space for an implication as the reader intuits the relationship between the two parts.
A haiku traditionally contains a
kigo (
season word) which symbolises or intimates the season in which the poem is set.
Among traditionalist Japanese haiku writers, both kireji and kigo are considered absolute requirements for the form, yet, as noted above, kireji are not in use in English. Season words (kigo), although considered by many to be essential to haiku, are not always included by modern writers of Japanese "free-form" haiku and some non-Japanese haiku.
Because
Japanese nouns do not have different singular and plural forms, "haiku" is usually used as both a singular and plural noun in
English as well. Thus, practicing haiku poets and translators refer to "many haiku" rather than "haikus".
Senryū is a similar poetry form that emphasizes irony, satire, humor, and human foibles instead of seasons, and may or may not contain a kigo or a kireji
( from wikipedia)
- JR, in summer
07-18-2008
Linear Mode
