Also known as the "Hokku", this verse form has been practiced by Japanese poets for hundreds of years. It originated from "Tanka", a poem of five lines often written by two people jousting in a literary game. One would write three lines and the other responding with two lines capping them. The three line starting verse, the "Hokku", became popular as a separate form and was later referred to as "Haiku". There are only seventeen syllables in the entire Haiku poem. The first and last lines contain five syllables and the middle line contains seven. When translating these wonderful allegories into English, the proper syllabic order is inevitably lost.

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Old snow is melting

Now the huts unfreezing too

Free all the children

Issa

•

Icicles and water

Old differences dissolved...

Drip down together

Teishitsu

•

Eleven brave knights

Canter through the whirling snow

Not one bends his neck

•

This snowy morning

The black crow I hate so much...

But he's beautiful!

Basho

•

Ah! I intended

Never never to grow old

Listen: New Year's bell!

Joku

•

Buddha on the hill

From your holy nose indeed

Hangs an icicle

Issa

•

Dry cheerful cricket

Chirping, keeps the autumn gay...

Contemptuous of frost

Basho

•

For morning-glories

I can forsee grave danger...

Single-stick practice

Chora

•

Stupid hot melons…

Rolling like fat idiots

Out from leafy shade!

Kyora

•

Good friend grasshopper

Will you play the caretaker

for my little grave?

Issa

•

Dewdrop, let me cleanse

In your brief sweet waters…

These dark hands of life

Basho

•

By that fallen house

The pear tree stands full-blooming...

An ancient battle site

Shiki

•

Ah me! I am one

Who spends his little breakfast

Morning-glory gazing

Basho (1644 - 1694)

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"Locked in

a staring contest

with a frog!"

Kobayashi Issa (1763 - 1827).