Haiku

Japanese haiku count sounds, called on, not syllables. The word "haiku" itself has three sounds: ha-i-ku. Two rules matter more than the count. First, a haiku includes a kigo, a season word. "Frog" points to spring, "cicada" to summer and "moon" to autumn. Poets use thick almanacs that list thousands of them. Second, it has a kireji, a "cutting word." It works like spoken punctuation. It splits the poem into two images and lets the reader feel the gap between them. In English, haiku poets usually write fewer than seventeen syllables, because English syllables are longer.

The form grew out of linked verse, a game in which poets took turns adding lines. The opening verse slowly became a poem of its own. Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) made it a serious art. His most famous haiku reads furuike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto: "The old pond / a frog jumps in / the sound of water." The poem has no message. It gives a still pond, a sudden movement and a sound that fades. Later masters such as Buson and Issa followed him. The name "haiku" itself is young. The poet Masaoka Shiki made it popular in the 1890s. Today newspapers print readers' haiku every week, and countless amateurs write them.