Someone recently gave me an illustrated book of haiku, which had 15-20 poems from each of the four primary, classical Japanese masters of the form, arranged in chronological order. As you may know, the four traditional, acknowledged haiku masters are:
- Basho (1644–1694)
- Buson (1716–1784)
- Issa (1763–1828)
- Shiki (1867–1902)
The book, bound with doubled-accordion pages to avoid bleed-through, was laid out with a single-poem page on one side and facing page with a relevant artwork. In the section of Buson’s poems, most (all?) of the artworks accompanying his haiku were his own. Each poem page displayed three versions of the haiku: 1) in English, 2) Japanese words in Latin alphabet or Rōmaji (ローマ字) which means “Romanized Japanese,” and 3) in Japanese characters. The book’s first two pages contained a brief history of haiku’s origins and a condensed bio for each of the four masters. The introduction was only an impression or vignette — much like a haiku — which left the reader thinking and wanting to learn more…
The gift book did not promise to enlighten or pretend to be comprehensive, but it was certainly a lovely thing to put out for guests to thumb through. I’ve read so many haiku since childhood, I imagined the book would be just another collection of old favorites from the masters. However, after reading the introduction and most of the Basho haiku in Section 1, I was delighted to discover they were all new to me! It seemed the curators had endeavored to avoid the masters’ most well-known poems, digging deeper to find hidden gems. Fascinated — I decided to read through the entire book as I drank my afternoon tea. (See how I echoed my own title poem in that last sentence?)
Binge-reading a collection of haiku, you inevitably notice patterns, and learn from them. I noticed many patterns during my read-through of the new book, learning several new things, and reinforcing several of my own views. Here are my new/updated thoughts about haiku after reading so many in rapid succession, which expanded on and/or confirmed my previous understandings:
- The Japanese words (in English/Rōmaji) appear to always have 17 syllables, arranged in three lines of variable (not fixed) syllable-length.
- The English (translated) version rarely had 17 syllables and did not follow a consistent 5-7-5 or other fixed syllable count per line.
- Seasonal note — as expected, consistently present in all the haiku, though sometimes quite subtle; my understanding is that the absence of a seasonal note effectively makes it a senryū poem…
- Kireji — the “cutting word” (or phrase) was not always separated by hyphen (m-dash), or followed by an exclamation point for emphasis, and:
- Appeared most commonly in Line 3 of the haiku, but surprisingly often in Line 1 (as I tried in the title poem above).
- Was not always clear (was it lost in translation?) or identifiable (see Structure, below).
- Structure — perhaps distorted or lost in translation, but to me, reading the Japanese words in English/Rōmaji, it seemed that:
- Two-thirds were 3-line/3-phrase structured with the kireji in Line 1/Line 3, while
- Roughly one-third seemed to be one phrase or sentence, expressing one impression or describing one moment, flowing from beginning to end as one line, rather than three, and often without a distinct kireji…
- I personally favor the one-liner approach, though I’ve been scoffed at, scolded, and/or dismissed by some modern haiku poets (pundits and pontificators) for writing this way. It was more than a little gratifying to see the old masters sometimes breaking the “rules” in a similar fashion!
- Issa — I enjoy his work the most, out of the four… at least after my binge-read of this book.
After reading the last of Shiki’s haiku and finishing the book, I closed and placed it on the coffee table. Looking toward the couch to my right, I was amused to see one of our cats mesmerized, staring at my wife knitting. The cat trembled with unwilling restraint as my wife gently protested, until inevitably, the cat gave in to instinct and went for the yarn…
As you can imagine, the moment of cat vs. yarn, right after my haiku binge-read, inspired me to write a short poem about it.
