Writing HAIKU and Other Japanese Forms

Writing Haiku [with Notes on Other Forms]

Frank Coffman

Prof. of English, Rock Valley College [Retired]

The Japanese tradition of Haiku is much more complex than the Occidental notions of “syllable count” and “image poem.” Furthermore, it is much more flexible and versatile than most American teachers of the form realize. Many educators have used the Haiku as an introduction to creative writing in poetry because of its obvious advantages: brevity, relative simplicity, practice in vivid description, and freedom from the requirement of rhyme. But the impression of the form given to students is all too often overly simplified, with the result that many come away from the introduction with no real concept of the seriousness of the form and, perhaps, even the notion that it is trivial.

Haiku began in the 1600’s A.D. with the innovative experimentation of Matsuo Basho. Basho was greatly influenced by the masters of Chinese poetry from the T’ang Dynasty (7th to 9th centuries A.D.) and, of course, by the meditative and philosophical doctrines of Zen Buddhism. Basho was master of the Renga or “linked verse.” He also admired the Tanka of the Buddhist priest Saigyo.

Originally, the Haiku (also called Hokku) was the starting verse of a Renga. Renga are long linked poems of many stanzas, the stanzas alternating 5/7/5 and 7/7 in syllable count. They are often composed by two or more poets, each poet in turn being inspired to thought by the idea in the preceeding verse. The following are classic examples of Basho’s haiku translated into English:

on a barren branch

a raven has perched —

autumn dusk

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

old pond. . .

a frog leaps in

water’s sound

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

the stillness —

soaking into stones

cicada’s cry

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

clouds occasionally

make a fellow relax

moon viewing!

Basho, often called simply “The Master,” was the originator of the haiku form. The three other great early masters of the haiku form were Yosa Buson:

evening breeze. . .

water laps the legs

of the blue heron

— — — — — — — — — — — -

no bridge and

the sun ready to set. . .

waters of spring

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —

and Kobayashi Issa:

oh, don’t swat!

the fly rubs hands

rubs feet

— — — — — — — — — — — -

the coolness. . .

the half-moon shifts

puddles

— — — — — — — — — — — -

and Masaoka Shiki:

summer river. . .

there’s a bridge, but the horse

goes through water

— — — — — — — — — — — —

autumn clear —

the smoke of something

goes into the sky

The Haiku is an attempt to share an experience of the poet. At its best it is much more than a vivid description of some unusual, thought-provoking, and interesting observation of the world. Its words should capture the attitude, emotional state, and even philosophy of the poet.

Traditionally, the Haiku has a “season word” or at least some hint or suggestion of a seasonal setting. Also by tradition, it is usually “cut” into two rhythmical and/or grammatical parts; this break is usually after the first five or after the first twelve syllables (in other words, after line one or line two if written in the Western adaptation of a 5–7–5 division).

Some examples follow:

Fuji alone

remains unburied:

the young leaves! t

— Buson

— — — — — — — — — — — — -

a really lovely

kite has risen above;

a beggar’s hu

— Issa

— — — — — — — — — — — — -

walking the clouds

even sucking the mist!

soaring skylark

— Shiki

— — — — — — — — — — — — -

Often, the Haiku presents an interesting bringing-together of two images. Occasionally, there is a “zoom lens” effect, a broad view of a scene quickly focusing to some detail or vice versa. Sometimes there is a blurred image which is realized clearly in a revelation. Examples of these three types in respective order follow:

harvest moon. . . r

smoke goes creeping

over the water

— — — — — — — — — — — —

in the meadow

the cow’s lips

wet with grass

— — — — — — — — — — — —

the falling flowe

I saw drift back to the branch

was a butterfly

-

As William Higginson says in The Haiku Handbook:

“Vivid, clear writing gives the reader clear images. This results in a kind of vicarious experience, in which the reader pictures what the writer’s words show, hears what they sound, feels what they touch, and so on. If a writer captures the images of an experience that produced emotion, then the reader — if comprehending and sympathetic — will have a similar emotion based on experiencing the images provided by the writer. The haiku is the quintessence of this kind of writing.”

Higginson also gives some hints on writing Haiku:

1) Brevity is essential to create dramatic suspense.

2) Leave out unneeded grammar words and connectives.

3) Use puns to expand meaning:

the year giving out

people give me nothing

this evening. . .

4) The typical figures of speech in Japanese Haiku are also very obviously appropriate to Haiku in other languages. The more common are:

· grammatical ambiguity

· simile

· metaphor

· synesthesia

· onomatopoeia

· alliteration

Higginson also recommends a new method of writing Haiku in English on more of an accentual pattern to approximate the sound of Japanese Haiku. He suggests a pattern of 2/3/2 accents in three lines rather than syllable count lines because the English syllable is longer in duration than the Japanese onji. However, this and other theoretical variations on the form are best left alone until the basic notions of the form are mastered.

Another very useful form of syllable count poetry is the Tanka, which had its origin in the aristocratic classes and the court of the emperor. The form is in five lines of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables. Often, like the sonnet in western poetics, the tanka was the vehicle of love poetry:

The autumn wind

has become cooler now.

horses abreast,

let’s go to the meadow

to see the hagi blooms. .

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

High on the summit

the garden is all moonlight

the moon is golden.

More precious is the contact

of your lips in the shadows

But it is also useful to convey a variety of emotion:

stuck in a vase

clusters of wisteria

blossoms hanging,

in the sick-bed

spring begins to darken

Other Japanes forms with great potential for experimentation and diversity are:

1) Renga: alternating stanzas of 5/7/5 and 7/7 syllables, composed by two or more poets in a group session, each succeeding stanza inspired by the one before (good for class creative project or “Renga Parties”).

2) Choka: a long poem of alternating verse lines of 5 and 7 syllables with an extra 7-syllable line at the end.

3) Gunsaku: a group of haiku and/or tanka on a single subject which illuminate the subject from various points of view, but which can be read independently.

4) Rensaku: a group of haiku and/or tanka which function as stanzas of a long poem — not independent.

5) Sedoka: a longer poem with stanzas of 5/7/7 syllables — often composed as a series of questions and answers by two parties.

6) Senryu: a humorous or satiric haiku.

7) Haibun: terse, imagistic prose narrative with reflective haiku interspersed.

Selected Haiku

by Frank Coffman

sails on the harbor;

flight, light on the lapping waves. . .

the moon scuds through clouds

Surf walk. The sea sifts

fine between, below our toes. . .

pulling earth away.

The night grows colder.

Cacaphony above me —

geese crossing moon clouds.

Autumn russet dusk,

wind-rattled trees, husk of corn;

red leaves, river-borne.

hound’s bark — hunter shoots. . .

blood soaks the snow-cloaked stark ground.

Crunch of the dark boots.

[NOTE: Far too much rhyme and “Western” effects

in this one for “Haiku Purists.” It was meant to be

a blend of Eastern and Western traditions.

Biking

Billboards in my wake. . .

cheek-sails fill with breeze. Master

of the concrete seas.

What subtle fingers

the artisan needs who wrights

such miniatures.*

*The preceeding seven haiku are all the work of Frank Coffman and were all submitted for publication to Modern Haiku(University of Wisconsin, Madison) The last poem was published in the Spring 1985 issue with the following agreed-upon changes:

What subtle fingers

the artist must have who works

such miniatures.

[NOTE: While I still think my “poet’s license” is paid up and “wrights” was a good pun on both “write” and the old English sense of “making something” [what wrights do (Cartwright, Wheelwright, Boatwright, etc.)] the editors of the journal evidently didn’t want the pun. I still think it’s better in the original. Some of the others have the “problem” of the Occidental tradition of rhyme. I guess they weren’t Oriental enough for the editors. I still think a merging of traditions is possible and productive. The publication made me $9 ($3 per line!) and a year’s (4 issues) free subscription. O Poets, don’t give up your day job!]

SUGGESTED TEXTS:

THE HAIKU HANDBOOK, Wm. Higginson, McGraw-Hill

HOW TO WRITE A HAIKU, David Lindley

THE ART OF READING AND WRITING HAIKU,

Randy Brooks & Jessica Sebok

More on Japanese Poetic Forms

HAIKU (plural: haiku, from archaic Japanese): The term haiku is a fairly late addition to Japanese poetry. The poet Shiki coined the term in the nineteenth century from a longer, more traditional phrase, haikai renga no hokku (“the introductory lines of light linked verse”). To understand the haiku’s history as a genre, peruse the vocabulary entries for its predecessors, the hokku and the haikai renga or renku.

The haiku follows several conventions:

(1) The traditional Japanese haiku consists of three lines. The first line contains five syllables, the second line contains seven, and the last line five. In Japanese, the syllables are further restricted in that each syllable must have three sound units [NOTE: These sound units are call “ON,” sometimes mistakenly referred to as “ONJI” — the “JI” is actually a graphic sign unit, not the sound] (sound-components formed of a consonant, a vowel, and another consonant). The three unit-rule is usually ignored in English haiku, since English syllables vary in size much more than in Japanese. Furthermore, in English translation, this 5/7/5 syllable count is occasionally modified to three lines containing 6/7/6 syllables respectively, since English is not as “compact” as Japanese. NOTE: Other methods of doing English language Haiku are to shift to accentual meter and count 2/3/2 accents per line, and other systems have been suggested.

(2) The traditional subject-matter is a Zen description of a location, natural phenomona, wildlife, or a common everyday occurrence. Insects and seasonal activities are particularly popular topics. If the subject-matter is something besides a scene from nature, or if it employs puns, elaborate symbols, or other forms of “cleverness,” the poem is technically a senryu rather than a haiku. The point was that the imagery presents a “Zen snapshot” of the universe, setting aside logic and thought for a flash of intuitive insight. The haiku seeks to capture the qualities of experiencing the natural world uncluttered by “ideas.” Often editors will talk about “the haiku moment” — that split second when we first experience something but before we begin to think about it. (In many ways, this idea might be contrasted usefully with the lyric moment in the English tradition of poetry; see lyric).

(3) The haiku is always set during a particular season or month as indicated by a kigo, or traditional season-word. This brief (and often subtle) reference to a season or an object or activity associated with that time of year establishes the predominant mood of the poem.

(4) It is striking a feature of the haiku that direct discussion of the poem’s implications is forbidden, and symbolism or wordplay discouraged in a manner alien to Western poetry. The poet describes her subject in an unusual manner without making explicit commentary or explicit moral judgment. To convey such 4) [cont.] ideas, the genre often relies upon allusions to earlier haiku or implies a comparison between the natural setting and something else. Simplicity is more valued than “cleverness.” Again, if the poet is being clever, using puns or symbols, the poem again is technically a senryu rather than a haiku.

(5) The poet often presents the material under a nom de plume rather than using her own name — especially in older haiku.

(6) Additionally, the haiku traditionally employ “the technique of cutting” — i.e., a division in thought between the earlier and later portions of the poem. (It is comparable to the volta of a sonnet). These two divisions must be able to stand independently from the other section, but each one must also enrich the reader’s understanding of the other section. In English translation, this division is often indicated through punctuation marks such as a dash, colon, semicolon, or ellipsis.

Here is an example of a haiku by a Western writer, James Kirkup:

In the amber dusk

Each island dreams its own night —

The sea swarms with gold.

The following poem serves as an example very loosely translated from Japanese:

Yagate shinu

Keshiki wa miezu

Semi no koe

[O cricket, from your cheery cry

No one could ever guess

How quickly you must die.]

This example illustrates the haiku’s lack of authorial commentary or explanation — the desire merely to present the experience of nature:

Samidare wo

Atsumete hayashi

Mogami-gawa

[Gathering all

The rains of May

The swift Mogami River.]

Many Japanese poets have used the form, the two acknowledged masters being Bashó (a nom de plume for Matsuo Munefusa, 1644–94); and Kobayashi Issa (a nom de plume for Kobayashi Nobuyuki). The Imagist Movement in 20th century English literature has been profoundly influenced by haiku. The list of poets who attempted the haiku or admired the genre includes Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, Robert Frost, Conrad Aiken, and W. B. Yeats. Contrast haiku with the tanka and the senryu. See also hokku, below, and haikai, above. See also kigo and imagism. You can click here to download a PDF handout summarizing this discussion of haiku, or you can click here to download PDF samples of haiku.

HOKKU: In Japanese poetry, the term hokku literally means “starting verse.” A hokku was the first starting link of a much longer chain of verses known as renga or linked verse. The hokku was traditionally three lines long, with a syllable count of 5/7/5 syllables in the three lines (i.e., the hokku was identical in structure to the modern haiku, the independent genre that later developed out of the hokku). The hokku was always the most important and best known part of a renga much in the way that the first verse and chorus of a popular song are often well-known even when the other verses are poorly known or ignored. Because the hokku ultimately evolves into what we today call the haiku, it is common to the find scholars make a distinction between “modern haiku” (haiku) and “classical haiku” (hokku). See renga and haiku for further discussion.

RENGA: Japanese linked verse — a poetic dialogue formed by a succession of waka in which poets take turns composing the poem as a party-game. The rules for the games were supposedly laid down in 1186 CE by Fujiwara Sadaie (1162–1241) and Fujiwara Sadatake (c. 1139–1202). The first three lines have a set pattern of 5/7/5 syllables. One poet writes these three lines, then passes his poem to another person. That person then writes two lines of 7/7 syllables. The next three lines of 5/7/5 are written by a third person, and so on, until a lengthy poem of a hundred lines or so results. Of these long composite poems, the first three — called the hokku, are always the most important. The renga eventually develops into the renku (see below), and the hokku of these two poetic forms ultimately evolves into the haiku in the19th century. See hokku, haiku, waka, and renku.

RENKU (also called haikai renga): An earthier, humorous variant on the courtly renga introduced by Iio Sogi, Yamazzaki Sokan, and Nishiyama Soin. While the form of the renku are identical to the renga, the subject-matter, tone, and vocabulary are quite different. Ultimately, the hokku section of the renku or haikai renga develop into the modern haiku after Matsuo Bashó took the poetic form and elevated it to a meaningful zen reaction to nature. See hokku, haiku, and renga.

SENRYU: The senryu is a satirical form of the haiku. The form originates in Edo with the poet Karai Senryu (1718–1790). While the haiku attempt to avoid excessive “cleverness,” vulgarity, humor, or explicit moralizing on the poet’s part, the senryu embraces these elements. The genre allows a greater liberty of diction. Its tone is less lofty than the Zen-like tone found in many haiku, and it often focuses on the distortions and failings of human nature rather than the beauty of nature. Conventional topics include mothers-in-law, shrewish wives, women of disrepute, the antics of bachelors, and misbehavior among the clergy. Here is an example of a senryu:

When she wails

At the top of her voice,

The husband gives in.

As Joan Giroux suggests in The Haiku Form, the humor and implicit lesson in such senryu are very appealing to European and American writers. It is a genre much more accessible to the Western poet, accustomed as we are to logic rather than Zen. She writes:

Would-be writers of English haiku are often dismayed to have their Japanese friends remark, “Your poem is more like senryu. It is too philosophical.” It is not surprising, therefore, that senryu appeals strongly to Western readers. The Western tradition of logic rather than intuition makes senryu in some respects easier [for Western poets] to write than haiku. (22–23)

TANKA: A genre of Japanese poetry similar to the haiku. A tanka consists of thirty-one syllables arranged in five lines. The lines contain five / seven / five / seven / seven syllables. Also known as the waka or uta, it originated in the 600s CE, and it is regarded as the classic, ancient Japanese poetic form. It has had little influence on Western poetry, though Amy Lowell and Adelaide Crapsey have imitated it. Contrast it with the much more influential haiku. WAKA: A Japanese genre of poetry closely related to the tanka, consisting of alternate five- and seven-syllable lines. The primary difference seems to be that the word waka dates back to the sixth century BCE, while the more familiar terms tanka and uta date back to an eighth-century CE poetry anthology, the Manyoshu. See tanka.

KIGO: A traditional “season-word” in Japanese haiku. The kigo must appear within a haiku’s text or be strongly implied by imagery. These words place the haiku within a specific month or season, establishing an atmosphere for the poem while maintaining brevity. Japanese books of poetry are usually divided according to season, with the five Japanese seasons being Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and New Year’s added as the fifth season to Europe’s traditional four. The kigo can be an actual reference to the name of the season or a month, or it can be a traditional connotative word: cicadas, fireflies, flies, frogs, and mosquitoes are common kigo for summer haiku, as are billowing clouds, summer storms, burning sunshine, fans, midday naps, parasols, and planters’ songs. Fall kigo include references to the moon, falling leaves, scarecrows, the call of crickets, chrysanthemums, and allusions to the cold weather, lengthening nights, graveside visits, charcoal kilns, medicinal roots, gourds, persimmons, apples, and vines. Winter kigo include imagery of snow, bowl-beating rituals or begging, allusions to failing strength, charcoal fires, banked fires, socks drying, the old calendar, mochi (festive rice-cakes) and mochi sellers. Spring kigo include cherry blossoms, and so on. The following haiku by Bashó illustrates the kigo:

Kare eda ni

Karasu no tomari keri

Aki no kure

[On a leafless bough

A crow is perched —

The autumn dusk.]