Poetic Forms : HAIKU (Week 7, A Repost of week 4)
Welcome to the 4th installment of our FEATURE "POETIC FORMS", to get inspired and know the world of different forms of poetry and I am Shashi your
host. Every month on the 3rd Wednesday, I will try to give you info
about some forms of poetry which has attracted me and inspired me..
This
post will also have some interesting example's to inspire you to write
some poetry in the form.... so here we go friends with one of the most
interesting forms that has kept me captivated for decades
....HAIKU ....
One of the most interesting form of Poetry from Japan, which is all about creating an image within the reader's mind with very few words...
Wish this post inspires you to paint some beautiful images within 17 syllables and in 3 lines.
Go
on... read and then post some of your own trial runs, rough drafts or
your polished gems of HAIKU. I look forward to reading them and come
back to you with my suggestions and my thoughts...
How to Submit Your Poetry?
Add
your entry via InLinkz below by clicking on the blue button, and leave a
comment in case it is your first time! It would be great if you could
link back to us on your blog.
Now without any further delay... here is this year's (Horse for 2014, sheep or goat for 2015) POETIC FORM "HAIKU" for you to sink your creative teeth in and let your words flow....
Classic Haiku
Haiku
are short, brilliantly vivid poems containing visually complete
descriptions of moments in a poet’s experience. In the space of their
original 17 Japanese syllables, haiku express worlds of profound emotion
and philosophical insight. Simple on the surface, yet fascinatingly
complex on close study, Haiku have universal appeal and the number of
languages into which they have been translated testify to this.
Much, though
not all, early Japanese poetry was written by nobility, and despite the
strict conventions of behaviors imposed on courtiers of the 8thto the 11th centuries, much of their poetry still radiates inspiration and sparkle today.
Nature
images, such as cherry blossom, in early Japanese poetry became one of
the most characteristic features of the canon. In other poems such as
this by the 8th centaury poet Takechi no Kurohito, a note of
melancholy suffuses the poet’s vivid perception, and the snapshot of
natural beauty is modulated by the suggestion of human activity, a
technique often used by Haiku poets many centuries later.
Travelling and lonely, I see beneath a hill
A boat painted with red clay rowing to the other side.
- Kurohito
 |
| Murasaki Shikibu, illustration by Tosa Mitsuoki (17th century) |
Writers of the medieval period in Japan, from roughly the 8th to the 13th centuries,
produced an enormous literature of love poetry. Most of the poems in
Lady Murasaki’s prose classic “The tale of Genji” were short verses of
longing, sadness or reminiscence exchanged between friends of lovers.
The following verse traded between Prince Genji and the Japanese Empress
at the death-bed of Genji’s wife are characteristic. His poem comes
first; hers answers:
In the haste we make to leave this world of dew
May there be no time between the first and last.
- Genji
A world of dew before the autumn winds,
Not only theirs, these fragile leaves of grass
-Empress
 |
| Chūnagon Yakamochi by Kanō Tan'yū |
The inherent sadness in life’s transient incompleteness is a theme that would preoccupy the great Haiku Poets.
A knowledge of classical poetic tradition represented in the 8th century anthology Man’yoshu and the 10thcentury Kokinshu was indispensable to later poets writing haiku.
The term Waka – a word meaning “Japanese poem” came into use in the 9th century,
to minimize the confusion with Chinese Poetry being read and written by
educated Japanese people at a time during the T’ang Dynasty when
Chinese arts threatened to become overly influential in Japan. It was
during this period that Japanese imperial diplomatic and economic ties
with Chinawere
broken, and consequently Japanese writers were encouraged to pursue
more local traditions and genres. Japanese people had been composing
Waka for ceremonial occasions long before the advent of a literary
culture, and even when writing becomes an established means of
discourse, the recitation of Waka remained a public art and means of
private communication.
The short form of Waka, later become known as Tanka, which grew to be the most popular poetic vehicle and Haiku developed from it.
The Kokinshu – whose ‘thousands of leaves’ represents the oldest poetic tradition in Japan.
It was compiled around 920CE, where the poems are organized according
to theme, divided into sections devoted to love and the four seasons.
This ordering of topics became prescriptive and for many centuries
determined the subjects that were deemed acceptable for study by the
professional poets who made a living giving instruction in Haiku
writing: the Haiku Masters.
Haiku Rules:
While some
Haiku poets claimed a degree of personal freedom, most obeyed decreed
compositional rules. First the Haiku consisted of 17 syllables, made of
three phrases of five, seven and five syllables. Within this format, the
Haiku was generally divided also into two parts standing in contrast or
reversal to each other.
A poem might
start with a traditional image such as cherry blossom, full moon or dew
and then re-focus to a lower perhaps clashing image. A seasonal word (Kigo)
was another prescriptive component of Haiku. Other rules underlined the
subtler aspects of Haiku. If classical correctness could be ‘lowered’
to let in descriptions of ordinary life, it was, said Basho, important
to ‘correct’ the ordinary, imbuing it with poetic exaltation (Fuga). In turn Fuga has to be used to express important ideas: the spiritual wealth within modest and simple things (Wabi); beauty, mystery and elegance (Yugen) as in the example below
Stillness and solitude –
Sinking into stones,
The trill of cicadas
- Basho
And melancholy sadness and tranquility (Sabi and Shori)
On a withered branch
A crow has settled.
Nightfall in autumn.
- Basho
Or in the spirit of poetic madness (Fukyo)
Let me show you,
You market people,
This hat filled with snow.
- Basho
And sometimes in shockingly comic ‘lightness’ (Karumi)
A bush warbler
Leaves its droppings on the rice cake
At the edge of the verandah.
-Basho
Emphasizing the shift in tone, a cutting word (Kireji)
usually sits at the end of one of the phrases. The cutting word was
often a semantically meaningless sentence-ending particle such as kana, ka, ya, heri or ran.
Such word sounds did not themselves contribute meaning but acted both
to divide the poem into two rhythmic halves and to set up a contrast
between the two poem’s parts. A seasonal word Kigo was another
prescriptive component of Haiku. Early classical literature contained a
huge vocabulary of words that implied not only a season but an emotion
appropriate to it. Spring, with its mood of optimism, was implied by
cherry blossom and certain birds. The bright but often fatiguing summer
was often suggested by flower and tree words. Autumn melancholy was
expressed by ‘lonely’ images, such as a full moon, wind and dying
leaves. Cold words like snow alluded to the hard experience of winter.
Poets writing in the spirit of haikai added less refined seasonal words: Dandelion, garlic, horseradish and mating cats all connoted spring for example.
Some of the
times, Haiku also shows of an acceptance of the life’s impermanence. The
most famous Haiku Master Basho’s haiku some times also demonstrates the
genuine Buddhist enlightenment. The following very famous Haiku by the
most famous Haiku Master Basho expresses most vividly the truth – the
enactment of both, the phenomenon, what is and its passing. In this
Haiku, a creature living unconsciously, according to its nature, is
shown in the context of the man made artifice of an old garden pond,
highlighting the simple bare and eternally ordinary ‘is-ness’ of all
existence in the present moment:
Old pond
A frog jumps in,
The sound of water
The Milestones…
After Basho, there have been many great poets who took Haiku to the greater heights …
Buson
The bite of my axe.
Sudden revelation –
There is life in this tree!
As Buson accepts his death quietly in this farewell poem
White plum blossoms,
Night turns to dawn –
The time has come
Kobayashi Issa
Alone among the shady bushes
A girl is singing
A rice planter's song
Masaoka Shiki
A river in summer
There’s a bridge here, but
My horse prefers water
Kaikyo
With useless authority
The great horned owl
Sits moon-eyed in daylight
Etsujin
I envy the tomcat:
How easily he lets go of
Love’s pain and longing
Ranran
The child cries at her breast.
And the mosquito also bites
The sleeping mother
Senna
With ink-stained lips,
The boy leaves his poem
For the cool outdoors
______________
For further reading and my personal journey in knowing and embracing Haiku, please check out my blog feature @ Haiku – The essence of a poetic moment
Now Join in with Linkz below to share, to read some great talents and get inspired...
________________
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya
Text and Image Sources: Tom Lowenstein’s Classic Haiku and Wikipedia
Greetings from The Purple Treehouse,
We redo Shashi's Haiku Form post so that you can submit
Haiku
to our site, in celebrating Christmas and New Year of 2014-2015, Have Fun!
