Japanese Poems

Today, Japanese poetry can be divided into modern or traditional styles. It’s background starts around the 8th century, when Japan developed its own process of writing. Until this time, poetry had been recited orally and later became the foundations for the first books in Japan. It took Japanese poets several hundred years to merge their culture into their own style of writing. A new trend of poetry came in the middle of the 19th Century. Haiku, Tanka, and Renga are the three forms of Japanese poetry that emerged. Their thoughts reflect upon daily lives, emotions and nature.

Today, Haiku is the most common and remains unique amongst poetry due to its structure. It is a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of five, seven and five syllables. When written in Japanese form, Haiku is written in a single vertical line. However, when written in English, Haiku is written in three lines. With in these three lines of Haiku , poets make every effort to produce a sense of vividness and clarity, always joining emotions or ideas into natural objects.

Haiku also contains a Kigo, a defined word or phrase which implies the season of the poem. An example of this would be cherry blossoms, which would indicate spring , as snow would indicate winter. Previously called hokku, Haiku was given its current name by a Japanese writer named Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century.