Haiku Poem
Covered with the flowers
Instantly I’d like to die
In this dream of ours!
Examples of Haiku
Glass balls and glowing lights
Dead tree in living room
Killed to honor birth
Fallen sick on a journey
In dreams I run wildly
Over a withered moor
Haiku Structure / Definition
five syllables
seven syllables
five syllables
Haiku is a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.
A haiku is an unrhymed verse form, conveying a complete image or feeling in three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables.
Winter Haiku
Winter usually connotes burden, cold, sadness, hunger, tranquility or peace. Winter can be invoked with words like "snow," "ice," "dead tree," "leafless," etc.
Snow melts
Suddenly, the village
is full of children.
Nature Haiku
From hither and yon
The sounds of a waterfall
Bounce off young leaves.
Haiku History
Haiku is one of the most important forms of traditional japanese poetry.
Since early days, there has been confusion between the three related terms Haiku, Hokku and Haikai.
The term hokku literally means "starting verse", and was the first starting link of a much longer chain of verses known as haika.
Because the hokku set the tone for the rest of the poetic chain, it enjoyed a privileged position in haikai poetry, and it was not uncommon for a poet to compose a hokku by itself without following up with the rest of the chain.
Largely through the efforts of Masaoka Shiki, this independence was formally established in the 1890s through the creation of the term haiku.
This new form of poetry was to be written, read and understood as an independent poem, complete in itself, rather than part of a longer chain.
Strictly speaking the history of haiku begins only in the last years of the 19th century.
The famous verses of Edo-period (1600-1868) masters such as Basho, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa are properly referred to as hokku, and must be placed in the perspective of the history of haikai, even though they are now generally read as independent haiku.
Acknowledged Haiku Masters
- Akutagawa, Ryunosuke
- Basho, Matsuo
- Buson
- Etsujin
- Hashin
- Issa
- Kato, Shuson
- Kawahigashi, Hekigodo
- Kójó
- Murakami, Kijo
- Natsume, Soseki
- Raizan
- Ryusui
- Shiki
- Takahama, Kyoshi