Illustrated Haiku

Haiku. An intriguing form of poetic expression. We can discuss it, accurately define it, but do we truly understand it? It’s a short poem of three lines possessing a certain number of syllables in each line, is it 5-7-5, or perhaps 7-5-7? And we can’t help but wonder how much of the intent and beauty survives translation from the original Japanese.

In the winter storm
the cat keeps on
blinking its eyes.
- Yaso

My reading revealed that strictly speaking haiku consist of three lines in 17 syllables. Many translated haiku are quite relaxed about this convention, for example:

Life
is like a butterfly
whatever it is.
- Nishiyama Soin

The number of lines and syllables are not as critical as the achievement of the main components of haiku: that it describe a scene in nature (often implying a certain season), and that it contrast things eternal or traditional against the glimmer of a fleeting moment, the essence of a sudden realization, or a moment of inspiration. This “ah!” quality, often expressed in the English version of haiku with the somehow inadequate “Lo!” or “Oh!” or simply “!” or even just a dash, is what makes it haiku and not just a short poem. A haiku should leave us speechless at the “ah-ness” of things, at perceiving how nature is linked to human nature.

A hundred different gourds
from the mind
of one vine.
- Chiyo

Poets refer to this as the “leap,” where the poet makes a leap and the reader’s mind must catch up. Haiku poets fill their lines with a sensation of space, of holiness, of a spiritual experience. Perhaps the qualities that make haiku so hard to define and to create are what lends them their fascination. It is said, “If you write five haiku in your life, you are a haiku writer; if you write ten, you are a master.”

I wonder in what fields today
He chases dragonflies in play
My little boy who ran away.
- Chiyo

To explain the previous haiku, Japanese boys catch dragonflies by attaching gum to the tip of a bamboo pole, like a fishing rod. This haiku, claimed to be one of the most moving in literature by The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology, was written by Chiyo after her only child died at the age of nine.

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) is the undisputed master of Japanese haiku. His writings are said to be remarkably creative, and he raised haiku as an art form to a new significance.

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