Haiku Inspiration  June 23, 2007 - July 14, 2007

Please submit your best Haikus! Please note that if it is not a true Haiku it will not be qualified. If it has spelling errors it won't be qualified either. I want to see some Haiku that KNOCKS OUR SOCKS OFF!!! Good luck. :)

From Wikipedia: Haiku (俳句, Haiku?) listen (help�info) is a mode of Japanese poetry, the late 19th century revision by Masaoka Shiki of the older hokku (発句, hokku?), the opening verse of a linked verse form, haikai no renga. The traditional hokku consisted of a pattern of approximately 5, 7, 5 on. The Japanese word on, meaning "sound", corresponds to a mora, a phonetic unit similar but not identical to the syllable of a language such as English. (The words onji, ("sound symbol") or moji (character symbol) are also sometimes used.) A haiku contains a special season word (the kigo) representative of the season in which the renga is set, or a reference to the natural world.

Haiku usually combines three different phrases, with a distinct grammatical break, called kireji, usually placed at the end of either the first five or second seven morae. In Japanese, there are actual kireji words. In English, kireji is often replaced with commas, hyphens, elipses, or implied breaks in the haiku. These elements of the older haiku are considered by many to be essential to haiku as well, although they are not always included by modern writers of Japanese "free-form haiku" and of non-Japanese haiku. Japanese haiku are typically written as a single line, while English language haiku are traditionally separated into three lines.

In Japanese, nouns do not have different singular and plural forms, so 'haiku' is usually used as both a singular and plural noun in English as well.

Senryu is a similar poetry form that emphasizes humor and human foibles instead of seasons, and which may not have kigo or kireji.

Japanese hokku and haiku are traditionally printed in one vertical line, though in handwritten form they may be in any reasonable number of lines.

An example of classic hokku by Bashō:
古池や蛙飛込む水の音　
Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
An old mere
When the frogs jump in
The sound of water
Another Bashō classic:
初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也
Hatsu shigure saru mo komino wo hoshige nari
the first cold shower;
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw.
[At that time, Japanese rain-gear consisted of a large, round hat and a shaggy straw cloak.]

A modern English Haiku (used with permission):
Haikus are Easy.
But sometimes they don't make sense.
Refrigerator.

Stacy A. Foster

Indianapolis, IN

800 Views
Created Jun 23, 2007