Haiku: few words, deep feelings.
by Sergio Maria Morganti
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Index
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- Introduction - “The Great Four” HAIKUS:
6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28
-THE OLD POND -A WORLD OF DEW -IN A STATION OF THE METRO -HAIKU (FOR YOU) -BAD MOUTHING SOMEONE -THE CICADA’S CRY -LIGHTING ONE CANDLE -A POPPY BLOOMS -OVER THE WINTRY -LINES ON A SKULL -TRANQUILITY -THE TRAVELER
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A BRIEF INTRODCTION TO HAIKU What‘s a Haiku? A Haiku is traditionally a Japanese poem consisting of three short lines that do not rhyme. The origins of Haiku poems can be traced back as far as the 9th century, from the opening part of a larger Japanese poem called Renga. These Haiku written as an opening stanza were known as Hokku and over time writers began to write them as stand-alone poems. This type of poetry continues to be popular and composed up to these days, and it‘s also apreciated at an international level by readers and writers alike. What characterizes it? Traditional Japanese Haiku consist of three phrases that contain a Kireji, or "cutting word‘', 17 On (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a Kigo, or seasonal reference. A practice of artistic discipline, their minimal nature forces writers to pare down to only the essentials-making each word, or even syllable, count. What makes it unique? A Haiku is considered to be more than a type of poem; it is a way of looking at the physical world and seeing something deeper, like the very nature of existence, in doing so leaving the reader with a strong feeling or impression. Who are its main poets? There were four master Haiku poets from Japan, known as "the Great Four‘': Matsuo Basho, Kobayashi Issa, Masaoka Shiki, and Yosa Buson. Their work is still the model for traditional Haiku writing today.
In this book you‘ll find a selection of the most illustrious Haikus of all time: classic, modern and contemporary alike. I hope that you‘ll enjoy them and have an extra-sensorial experience as you read along these following pages.
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THE GREAT FOUR Matsuo Basho
(Ueno, 1644- Osaka, November 28, 1694)
Born into the military and later ordained as a monk in a Zen monastery, he became a famous poet with his own school and an increasing number of pupils. A tireless traveller, he often describes the experience of travelling in his work. His aesthetics combined the dictates of Zen with a new sensibility that characterised the changing society: from the search for emptiness, bare simplicity and the representation of nature to essential but vivid portraits of everyday and popular life.
Kobayashi Issa
(Kashiwabara, June 15, 1763 –Kashiwabara, January 5, 1828)
Born into a farmer family, he was orphaned at the age of three and raised by his grandmother (who left him when he was fourteen). Sent after his grandmother‘s death to earn a living in Edo (present-day Tokyo), he returned to his native village at the age of 29. In the following years he travelled all over Japan, writing extensively. He married three times (and several children died in infancy), for the third time at a fairly old age, in 1826, to Yao. On 5 January 1828 a fire destroyed his house; Issa died a few months later, without even having the time to see the child his wife was carrying. His style, unaffected by his many personal problems, maintains an almost childlike simplicity, with a rather free use of colloquial phrases and dialectal terms.
Masaoka Shiki
(Matsuyama, October 14, 1867 – Tokyo, September 19, 1902)
Born into a samurai class family of modest means, his alcoholic father died when he was just five years old. His mother, Yae, was a daughter of Ōhara Kanzan, a Confucian scholar. Kanzan was the first of Shiki‘s extra-school tutors; at the age of 7 the boy began reading Mencius under his tutelage. Shiki later confessed to being a less-thandiligent student. He entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1890. But by 1892 Shiki, by his own account too engrossed in haiku writing, failed his final examinations, left the Hongō dormitory that had been provided to him by a scholarship, and dropped out of college. Others say tuberculosis, an illness that dogged his later life, was the reason he left school. He was a staunch reformer of Japanese poetry. His works, with their austerity and their freshness, keep him current even today.
Yosa Buson
(Kema, 1716 – Kyoto, January 17, 1784)
Born from a Japanese mother and a rich Venitian merchant father , at the age of twenty he moved to Edo (today‘s Tokyo) to study haikai poetry with the elderly teacher Hayano Hajin. On the death of the latter, he moved to the province of ShimoUsa and, following in the footsteps of his idol Bashō, he went to the wild territories in the north of the island of Honshū. The notes of this journey are published in 1744, under the name Buson. His artistic curriculum is not very clear, even if it seems certain that he studied as a self-taught Chinese classical masterpieces of the Ming and Yüan dynasties and was influenced by the artists Hyakusen and Itchô. Around the age of fifty he was influenced by the Nan-p‘in school and soon after he developed his own romantic style in poetry.
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THE OLD POND An old silent pond A frog jumps into the pondSplash! Silence again. Matsuo Basho
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A WORLD OF DEW A world of dew, And within every dewdrop A world of struggle. Kobayashi Issa
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IN A STATION OF THE METRO The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. Ezra Pound
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HAIKU [FOR YOU] Love between us is speech and breath. Loving you is a long river running. Sonia Sanchez
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BAD MOUTHING SOMEONE When you say something, The lip feel cold. The Autumn wind. Matsuo Basho
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THE CICADA‘S CRY In the cicada‘s cry No sign can foretell How soon it must die. Matsuo Basho
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LIGHTING ONE CANDLE The light of a candle Is transferred to another candleSpring twilight. Yosa Buson
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A POPPY BLOOMS I write, erase, rewrite Erase again, and then A poppy blooms. Katsushika Hokusai
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OVER THE WINTRY Over the wintry Forest, winds howl in rage With no leaves to blow. Natsume Soseki
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LINES ON A SKULL Life’s little, our heads sad. Redeemed and wasting clay this chance. Be of use. Ravi Shankar
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TRANQUILITY Oh, tranquility! Penetrating the very rock, A cicada‘s voice. Matsuo Basho
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THE TRAVELER Sicking on journey, My dream run about A desolate field. Matsuo Basho
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