Laura Gicheru

Definitions:

"Haiku is a traditional Japanese verse form, notable for its compression and suggestiveness. In three lines totaling seventeen syllables measuring 5-7-5, a great haiku presents, through imagery drawn from intensely careful observation, a web of associated ideas requiring an active mind on the part of the listener. The form emerged during the 16th century and was developed by the poet Basho (1644-1694) into a refined medium of Buddhist and Taoist symbolism." (http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Island/5022/)

"Haiku must state or imply a season or New Year’s Month and, except for modern innovations, is almost wholly restricted to natural images, whose symbolic force is based upon literary tradition and a cultural mingling of Buddhism, Taoism, native animism." ed. by Alex Preminger. Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. New Jersey: Princeton, 1965.

Related Genres: Cinquains (http://www.faximum.com/aha.d/cinqhmpg.htm),

Renga (http://abacus.bates.edu/~dkolb/seulmonde/renga2.html), Tanka (http://www.umr.edu/~gdoty/poems/essays/tanka-def.html), Senryu, and Haibun (http://kmacqueen.home.mindspring.com/pinecone/pinecone.htm)

Representational Genre: narrative or single voice

Narrative Genre: Interpretation

Example: a haiku by Basho

Highlights of Example: showing admiration and feeling sorrow

Additional Examples of the Genre: other haiku writers- Buson, Issa, Kikau, Gary Snyder, Richard Wilbur, and Richard Wright

Research Sources: see above definitions and (http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=05F0C000 )

Questions: 1. Do you know of any type of literature in our cultural that is similar to

haiku or may be influenced by it?

2. How could haiku be used to you?