full moon

                                                              full moon

                                                               clouds part

                                                            bird  silhouette

Original Basho Haiku, no capitols, punctuation,or syllable count,Japanese sound out each phoneme,not English syllables.

                                           

17 syllables in English, 

In Japanese,Basho taught 17 phonemes best rhythm for Haiku.  Not a requirement. Most famous Basho poem for 400 years.

                                                                       old pond

                                                                       frog leap

                                                                     water sound                                      no s in Japanese to form plural.

Just thought I would share this,

English form created in America,

about 110 years ago. translators 

could not figure how to keep  Basho's

genius form. As anyone can see this is

no great challenge,for an informed 

translator.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

I’m no poetry police, but occasionally I venture forth & offer some tidbit about the much mis-used poetic form many refer to as “haiku” . . . I’ve found most poets on this website aren’t interested in the finer points. But it’s always good to offer it for those who do! Your word illustration is a good way to show your lesson & you offer just enuf technicality to maintain people’s interest (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Terry L & Linda L Shuff]

What bothers me is the Americans hajack other countries genius, thus over time people think it is American. If thet would acknowledge the source, it would go along way to honor other cultures.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

and most often not only do we violate the form that originated in other countries...we misname it..

often senryus are misnamed as haiku...as per examples here, haiku is about nature only, senryus are the similar form but about people, life etc.

really informative what you do here...thank you for this, Terry.