Saturday, August 13, 2011

HAIKU for PEOPLE

HAIKU for PEOPLE
since 1995.

What is Haiku?

Haiku is one of the most important form of traditional Japanese poetry. Haiku is, today, a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. Since early days, there has been confusion between the three related terms Haiku, Hokku and Haikai. The term hokku literally means "starting verse", and was the first starting link of a much longer chain of verses known ashaika. Because the hokku set the tone for the rest of the poetic chain, it enjoyed a privileged position in haikai poetry, and it was not uncommon for a poet to compose ahokku by itself without following up with the rest of the chain.

Harvest moon:
around the pond I wander
and the night is gone.

- Basho

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