{"id":294,"date":"2020-05-09T00:03:44","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T18:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wnohang.net\/?p=294"},"modified":"2020-05-12T23:52:59","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T22:52:59","slug":"haiku-and-muffin-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wnohang.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/09\/haiku-and-muffin-top\/","title":{"rendered":"Haiku and Muffin Top"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

My interest in haikus was recently rekindled by James May\u2019s Our Man in Japan<\/a> series in which he frequently bookends the episodes with a haiku of his own. Accordingly, I started searching for a haiku ebook on Libby<\/a> (which if you are not using, you should give it a try!) and I found Haiku: Classic Japanese Short Poems<\/a>.  The book has haikus in Romaji, English, and vertical Japanese. The book is spartan in its use of graphics and has a very simple structure much like the subject matter it deals with. There are about 60-70 haikus in it from the four great haiku masters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haiku, for those hearing about it for the first time, is a form of Japanese poetry conforming to certain constraints on syllables (5-7-5) and split over three lines. The book itself does not delve sufficiently enough into the history of haiku, though the Wikipedia page on Haiku<\/a> proves more than sufficient here. Listing haikus often commence with the famous Matsuo Bash\u014d<\/a>\u2019s old pond haiku which goes like: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As it should be evident at this point, they are remarkably short, and often involve nature and seasons. They behoove the reader to invoke their imagination and experience the verses prima facie<\/em>.  To help with this, the haiku verses are often read slowly, more akin to sipping tea gently. A tabula rasa<\/a>-esque mindset, for that short period, helps. As a result, the haiku focuses as much on the material as the reader too, a dichotomy similar to an artwork in a gallery and a keen observer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

 Historically, haikus started as constituents of larger bodies of work called Renga<\/a>, a form of Japanese collaborative poetry. The opening stanza of a Renga is a Hokku. From the time of Basho, hokku started appearing by itself, more often alongside some prose in a form called Haibun. It was Masaoka Shiki<\/a> who renamed hokku to haiku and further established its independence. Over this evolution, the form changed from one of the complex rules and knowledge of classics to a style relying on ordinary situations and language to convey spirituality.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

English literature on its own has had poems relying on a similar flow and imagery. One of the most popular ones in this genre (known as Imagism<\/a>) is The Red Wheelbarrow<\/a> by William Carlos Williams<\/a>. This poem has been a recurring theme in a recently concluded (and one of my favorites) thriller series – Mr. Robot<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n