My Account
| |
Help
My Dashboard
My Dashboard
Get Published
Home
Books
Academic eBook Collections
eBook Library Collections
Graphic Novel Collections
Journal and Magazine Collection
Audio eBook Collection
Library Exhibits
Search
Support
How-To Tutorials
Suggestions
Machine Translation Editions
Noahs Archive Project
About Us
Terms and Conditions
Get Published
Submission Guidelines
Self-Publish Check List
Why Choose Self-publishing?
Home
|
Books
|
Search
|
Support
|
About Us
|
Sign in with your eLibrary Card
close
We appreciate your support of online literacy with your eLibrary Card Membership. Your membership has expired. Please click on the Renew Subscription button in the SUBSCRIPTION AND BILLING section of your Settings tab.
Close
Most Popular
New Releases
Top Picks
Kid 25's
Library Exhibits
Haiku
In the Air of Perfume
Haiku
The haiku originated from another style of 9th century Japanese poetry called
renga
, which was popular between the 9th and 12th centuries. Renga—a collaboration between at least two authors but often times many more—begins with a 3-line stanza called a
hokku
which is followed by a chain of stanzas written by other poets. The
hokku
is created by an honored individual, and follows a 5-7-5 structure of
mōra
, units of sound which determine stress or sound, very similar although not entirely the same as syllables. This in turn morphed into the modern day haiku.
Haiku, and indeed much of Japanese literature, did not make its way to the mainstream West until the early 20th century. Some inevitably failed to see the highly restrictive form of haiku as effective poetry. Takamishi Ninomiya writes in
The Poetry of Living Japan
, “Facility in expression must mean shallowness of thought ... How can a more consecutive thought be given vent in such short forms?" (p. 2). He goes on to counter this quote with one from T.S. Eliot, "no
vers
is
libre
for the man who wants to do a good job." It was just another form, after all.
If one had to explain the essence of haiku, the meaning of the word
hokku
sheds light on what it is. Imagist poet Yone Noguchi wrote, "Hokku means literally a single utterance or the utterance of a single verse; that utterance should be like a "moth light playing on reality's dusk," or "an art hung, as a web, in the air of perfume," swinging soft in music of a moment" (
The Spirit of Japanese Poetry
, p. 39). The Imagist poets immediately took to and celebrated the form for its simplicity and visual descriptions. It soon became popular all around the world.
Despite its rise in popularity, the brevity of haiku still deceives a lazy reader. Consider one of the most well-known haiku by
Matsuo Basho
, translated by
Alan Watts
:
The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
Haiku from Basho often resemble
koans
, or riddles without answers, but an attentive reader still gleans much. There is the transformation of the pond from stillness to splashing, the connection between the frog and the water, the implied ear that hears “the sound of water,” and the collision of the senses which communicates a sense of presence. It entertains in its utter simplicity, while simultaneously conveying the sense of the inexplicable.
Matsuo Basho was one of the four Japanese master haiku poets known as "the Great Four," alongside
Masaoka Shiki
,
Yosa Buson
, and
Kobayashi Issa
.
By Thad Higa
About Us
Privacy Policy
Contact Us
Copyright © World Library Foundation. All rights reserved. eBooks from World Library are sponsored by the
World Library Foundation
,
a 501c(4) Member's Support Non-Profit Organization, and is NOT affiliated with any governmental agency or department.