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NOW FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE…
SILENT FLOWERS:
A NEW COLLECTION OF JAPANESE HAIKU POEMS.
COMPILED BY DOROTHY PRICE
ILLUSTRATED BY NANAE ITO
HALLMARK EDITION
COPYRIGHT 1967 HALLMARK AND HOKUSEIDO PRESS,
SELECTED FROM "HAIKU" VOLUMES 1-4, BY R. H. BLYTH.
TOKYO JAPAN
PRINTED IN THE USA
UNPAGEINATED
APPROXIMATELY 60 PAGES
HARD COVER BOOK WITH DUST JACKET.
SMALL TEAR TO DJ AND PRICE CLIP.
FIRST EDITION.
BOOK IS IN GOOD TO VERY GOOD CONDITION.
A NEW COLLECTION OF JAPANESE HAIKU POEMS.
COMPILED BY DOROTHY PRICE
ILLUSTRATED BY NANAE ITO
HALLMARK EDITION
COPYRIGHT 1967 HALLMARK AND HOKUSEIDO PRESS,
SELECTED FROM "HAIKU" VOLUMES 1-4, BY R. H. BLYTH.
TOKYO JAPAN
PRINTED IN THE USA
UNPAGEINATED
APPROXIMATELY 60 PAGES
HARD COVER BOOK WITH DUST JACKET.
SMALL TEAR TO DJ AND PRICE CLIP.
FIRST EDITION.
BOOK IS IN GOOD TO VERY GOOD CONDITION.
Blyth and haiku
After early imagist interest in haiku the genre drew less attention in English,
until after World War II with the appearance of a number of influential volumes about Japanese haiku.
In 1949, with the publication in Japan of the first volume of Haiku,
Blyth's four-volume work, haiku was introduced to the post-war western world.
He produced a series of works on Zen, haiku, senryu,
and on other forms of Japanese and Asian literature,
the most significant being his Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics (1942);
his four-volume Haiku series (1949-52) dealing mostly with pre-modern haiku,
though including Shiki;
and his two-volume History of Haiku (1964).
Today he is best known as a major interpreter of haiku to English speakers.
+++PLUS+++
THE BAMBOO CHILD.
WRITTEN BY DEWEY E. MERCER
ILLUSTRATED BY KAZUKO MIZOBUCHI
COPYRIGHT 1966
MURE PRINTING COMPANY
TAKAMATSU, JAPAN
98 PAGE HARD COVER BOOK.
FIRST EDITION.
BOOK DOES SHOW AGE COLORATION.
SPINE HAS 2 SMALL HOLES.
INSCRIPTION BY PREVIOUS OWNER, 1971.
AUTHOR BIO: BORN 1929, CENTRAL CITY, KENTUCKY (KY). GRADUATE OF WESTERN KY STATE COLLEGE, BOWLING GREEN AND SOUTHERN SEMINARY. LINGUIST / PASTOR / MISSIONARY.
SOME POEM TITLES INCLUDE:
TALL PINES
LIGHTHOUSE
I DREAM OF TAKAMATSU
NEW YEAR'S DAY
THE CITY
JAPAN
TYPHOON
MT FUJI
SAKURA, OH CHERRY
MEDITATIONS
THE CLOCK OF LIFE
EVANGELISM / PROSELETYZING THEMS IN MOST OF PIECES. CHRISTAIN OUTREACH.
Lovely poems for a spiritual and emotional experience. Each with sepia tone / black and white illustrations. The author a native of Kentucky, was appointed to Japan as a missionary by the Baptist Foreign Mission Board.
---------------------------------------
FYI
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family.
In bamboo, as with other trees, the internodal regions of the tree stem are hollow and the vascular bundles in the cross section are scattered throughout the stem instead of in a cylindrical arrangement. The dicotyledonous woody xylem is also absent. The absence of secondary growth wood causes the stems of monocots, even of palms and large bamboo trees, to be columnar rather than tapering.
Bamboo trees are also the fastest growing trees in the world. They are capable of growing 60 cm (24 in.) or more per day due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. However, the growth rate is dependent on local soil and climatic conditions.
Bamboos are of notable economic and cultural significance in East Asia and South East Asia, being used for building materials, as a food source, and as a versatile raw product.
Bamboo in animal diets
Bamboo is the main food of the Giant Panda; it makes up 99% of the Panda's diet.Soft bamboo shoots, stems, and leaves are the major food source of the Giant Panda of China and the Red Panda of Nepal. Rats will eat the fruits as described above. Mountain Gorillas of Africa also feed on bamboo and have been documented consuming bamboo sap which was fermented and alcoholic; chimps and elephants of the region also eat the stalks.
Ornamental bamboos
There are two general patterns for the growth of bamboo: "clumping" (sympodial) and "running" (monopodial). Clumping bamboo species tend to spread slowly, as the growth pattern of the rhizomes is to simply expand the root mass gradually, similar to ornamental grasses. "Running" bamboos, on the other hand, need to be taken care of in cultivation because of their potential for aggressive behavior. They spread mainly through their roots and/or rhizomes, which can spread widely underground and send up new culms to break through the surface. Running bamboo species are highly variable in their tendency to spread; this is related to both the species and the soil and climate conditions. Some can send out runners of several metres a year, while others can stay in the same general area for long periods. If neglected, over time they can cause problems by moving into adjacent areas.
Bamboo foliage with black stems (probably Phyllostachys nigra)Bamboos seldom and unpredictably flower, and the frequency of flowering varies greatly from species to species. Once flowering takes place, a plant will decline and often die entirely. Although there are always a few species of bamboo in flower at any given time, collectors desiring to grow specific bamboo typically obtain their plants as divisions of already-growing plants, rather than waiting for seeds to be produced.
Medicine
Bamboo is used in Chinese medicine for treating infections and healing.
It is a low-calorie source of potassium. It is known for its sweet taste and as a good source of nutrients and protein.
In Ayurveda, the Indian system of traditional medicine, the silicious concretion found in the culms of the bamboo stem is called banslochan. It is known as tabashir or tawashir in Unani-Tibb the Indo-Persian system of medicine. In English it is called "bamboo manna". This concretion is said to be a tonic for the respiratory diseases. It was earlier obtained from Melocanna bambusoides and is very hard to get; it has been largely replaced by synthetic silicic acid. In most Indian literature, Bambusa arundinacea is described as the source of bamboo manna.
The pine tree, the bamboo, and the plum blossom (song zhú mei 松竹梅) are also admired for their perseverance under harsh conditions, and are together known as the "Three Friends in Winter" (岁寒三友). The "Three Friends" is traditionally used as a system of ranking in Japan, for example in sushi sets or accommodations at a traditional Ryokan (inn). Pine (matsu 松) is of the first rank, bamboo (take 竹) is of second rank, and plum (ume 梅) is of the third.
In Japan, a bamboo forest sometimes surrounds a Shinto shrine as part of a sacred barrier against evil. Many Buddhist temples also have bamboo groves.
Myths and legends
Several Asian cultures, including that of the Andaman Islands, believe that humanity emerged from a bamboo stem. In the Philippine creation myth, legend tells that the first man and the first woman each emerged from split bamboo stems on an island created after the battle of the elemental forces (Sky and Ocean). In Malaysian legends a similar story includes a man who dreams of a beautiful woman while sleeping under a bamboo plant; he wakes up and breaks the bamboo stem, discovering the woman inside. The Japanese folktale "Tale of the Bamboo Cutter" (Taketori Monogatari) tells of a princess from the Moon emerging from a shining bamboo section. Hawaiian bamboo ('ohe) is a kinolau or body form of the Polynesian creator god Kāne.
Bamboo cane is also the weapon of Vietnamese legendary hero Saint Giong- who had grown up immediately and magically since the age of 3 years old because of his national liberating wish against n invaders.
An ancient Vietnamese legend (The Hundred-knot Bamboo Tree) tells of a poor, young farmer who fell in love with his landlord's beautiful daughter. The farmer asked the landlord for his daughter's hand in marriage, but the proud landlord would not allow her to be bound in marriage to a poor farmer. The landlord decided to foil the marriage with an impossible deal; the farmer must bring him a "bamboo tree of one-hundred nodes". But Buddha (Bụt) appeared to the farmer and told him that such a tree could be made from one-hundred nodes from several different trees. Bụt gave to him four magic words to attach the many nodes of bamboo: "Khắc nhập, khắc xuất", which means "joined together immediately, fell apart immediately". The triumphant farmer returned to the landlord and demanded his daughter. Curious to see such a long bamboo, the landlord was magically joined to the bamboo when he touched it as the young farmer said the first two magic words. The story ends with the happy marriage of the farmer and the landlord's daughter after the landlord agreed to the marriage and asked to be separated from the bamboo.
In bamboo, as with other trees, the internodal regions of the tree stem are hollow and the vascular bundles in the cross section are scattered throughout the stem instead of in a cylindrical arrangement. The dicotyledonous woody xylem is also absent. The absence of secondary growth wood causes the stems of monocots, even of palms and large bamboo trees, to be columnar rather than tapering.
Bamboo trees are also the fastest growing trees in the world. They are capable of growing 60 cm (24 in.) or more per day due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. However, the growth rate is dependent on local soil and climatic conditions.
Bamboos are of notable economic and cultural significance in East Asia and South East Asia, being used for building materials, as a food source, and as a versatile raw product.
Bamboo in animal diets
Bamboo is the main food of the Giant Panda; it makes up 99% of the Panda's diet.Soft bamboo shoots, stems, and leaves are the major food source of the Giant Panda of China and the Red Panda of Nepal. Rats will eat the fruits as described above. Mountain Gorillas of Africa also feed on bamboo and have been documented consuming bamboo sap which was fermented and alcoholic; chimps and elephants of the region also eat the stalks.
Ornamental bamboos
There are two general patterns for the growth of bamboo: "clumping" (sympodial) and "running" (monopodial). Clumping bamboo species tend to spread slowly, as the growth pattern of the rhizomes is to simply expand the root mass gradually, similar to ornamental grasses. "Running" bamboos, on the other hand, need to be taken care of in cultivation because of their potential for aggressive behavior. They spread mainly through their roots and/or rhizomes, which can spread widely underground and send up new culms to break through the surface. Running bamboo species are highly variable in their tendency to spread; this is related to both the species and the soil and climate conditions. Some can send out runners of several metres a year, while others can stay in the same general area for long periods. If neglected, over time they can cause problems by moving into adjacent areas.
Bamboo foliage with black stems (probably Phyllostachys nigra)Bamboos seldom and unpredictably flower, and the frequency of flowering varies greatly from species to species. Once flowering takes place, a plant will decline and often die entirely. Although there are always a few species of bamboo in flower at any given time, collectors desiring to grow specific bamboo typically obtain their plants as divisions of already-growing plants, rather than waiting for seeds to be produced.
Medicine
Bamboo is used in Chinese medicine for treating infections and healing.
It is a low-calorie source of potassium. It is known for its sweet taste and as a good source of nutrients and protein.
In Ayurveda, the Indian system of traditional medicine, the silicious concretion found in the culms of the bamboo stem is called banslochan. It is known as tabashir or tawashir in Unani-Tibb the Indo-Persian system of medicine. In English it is called "bamboo manna". This concretion is said to be a tonic for the respiratory diseases. It was earlier obtained from Melocanna bambusoides and is very hard to get; it has been largely replaced by synthetic silicic acid. In most Indian literature, Bambusa arundinacea is described as the source of bamboo manna.
The pine tree, the bamboo, and the plum blossom (song zhú mei 松竹梅) are also admired for their perseverance under harsh conditions, and are together known as the "Three Friends in Winter" (岁寒三友). The "Three Friends" is traditionally used as a system of ranking in Japan, for example in sushi sets or accommodations at a traditional Ryokan (inn). Pine (matsu 松) is of the first rank, bamboo (take 竹) is of second rank, and plum (ume 梅) is of the third.
In Japan, a bamboo forest sometimes surrounds a Shinto shrine as part of a sacred barrier against evil. Many Buddhist temples also have bamboo groves.
Myths and legends
Several Asian cultures, including that of the Andaman Islands, believe that humanity emerged from a bamboo stem. In the Philippine creation myth, legend tells that the first man and the first woman each emerged from split bamboo stems on an island created after the battle of the elemental forces (Sky and Ocean). In Malaysian legends a similar story includes a man who dreams of a beautiful woman while sleeping under a bamboo plant; he wakes up and breaks the bamboo stem, discovering the woman inside. The Japanese folktale "Tale of the Bamboo Cutter" (Taketori Monogatari) tells of a princess from the Moon emerging from a shining bamboo section. Hawaiian bamboo ('ohe) is a kinolau or body form of the Polynesian creator god Kāne.
Bamboo cane is also the weapon of Vietnamese legendary hero Saint Giong- who had grown up immediately and magically since the age of 3 years old because of his national liberating wish against n invaders.
An ancient Vietnamese legend (The Hundred-knot Bamboo Tree) tells of a poor, young farmer who fell in love with his landlord's beautiful daughter. The farmer asked the landlord for his daughter's hand in marriage, but the proud landlord would not allow her to be bound in marriage to a poor farmer. The landlord decided to foil the marriage with an impossible deal; the farmer must bring him a "bamboo tree of one-hundred nodes". But Buddha (Bụt) appeared to the farmer and told him that such a tree could be made from one-hundred nodes from several different trees. Bụt gave to him four magic words to attach the many nodes of bamboo: "Khắc nhập, khắc xuất", which means "joined together immediately, fell apart immediately". The triumphant farmer returned to the landlord and demanded his daughter. Curious to see such a long bamboo, the landlord was magically joined to the bamboo when he touched it as the young farmer said the first two magic words. The story ends with the happy marriage of the farmer and the landlord's daughter after the landlord agreed to the marriage and asked to be separated from the bamboo.
-----------------------------------------
Haiku (俳句, haikai verse?) listen (help·info), plural haiku, is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 moras (or on), in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 moras respectively. Although haiku are often stated to have 17 syllables, this is inaccurate as syllables and moras are not the same. Haiku typically contain a kigo (seasonal reference), and a kireji (cutting word). In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English often appear in three lines, to parallel the three phrases of Japanese haiku. Previously called hokku, haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century.
In contrast to English verse typically characterized by meter, Japanese verse counts sound units (moras), known as "on". Traditional haiku consist of 17 on, in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively.
Although the word "on" is often translated as "syllable", in fact one on is counted for a short syllable, an additional one for an elongated vowel, diphthong, or doubled consonant, and one more for an "n" at the end of a syllable. Thus, the word "haibun", though counted as two syllables in English, is counted as four on in Japanese (ha-i-bu-n). This is illustrated by the Issa haiku below, which contains 17 on but only 15 syllables. In addition, some sounds, such as "kyo" (きょ) can be perceived as two syllables in English but as a single on in Japanese. A word that illustrates both these issues is "Tokyo", which is perceived as having three syllables in English (To-ky-o) but four moras in Japanese (To-o-kyo-o).
The word onji (音字; "sound symbol") is sometimes used in referring to Japanese sound units in English although this word is no longer current in Japanese. In Japanese, each on corresponds to a kana character (or sometimes digraph) and hence ji (or "character") is also sometimes used as the count unit.
In 1973, the Haiku Society of America noted that the then norm for writers of haiku in English was to use seventeen syllables but they also noted a trend towards shorter haiku. This trend is borne out by the Winter 2010 edition of Frogpond, which contains haiku with an average of 10.5 syllables, varying from six at the shortest to 15 at the longest.
Some translators of Japanese poetry have noted that about twelve syllables in English approximates the duration of seventeen Japanese on.
haiku traditionally contains a kigo, a defined word or phrase that symbolizes or implies the season of the poem.
Kigo are often in the form of metonyms and hence can be difficult for those who lack Japanese cultural references to spot. The BashU examples below include "kawazu", literally "frog" but implying spring time (when frogs emerge into the paddy fields) and "shigure", a rain shower in late autumn or early winter.
Among traditionalist Japanese haiku writers, kigo are considered requirements of the form. Kigo are not always included in non-Japanese haiku or by modern writers of Japanese "free-form" haiku.
In Japanese haiku a kireji, or cutting word, typically appears at the end of one of the verse's three phrases. A kireji fills a role somewhat analagous to a caesura in classical western poetry or to a volta in sonnets. Depending on which cutting word is chosen, and its position within the verse, it may briefly cut the stream of thought, suggesting a parallel between the preceding and following phrases, or it may provide a dignified ending, concluding the verse with a heightened sense of closure.
The fundamental aesthetic quality of both hokku and haiku is that it is internally sufficient, independent of context, and will bear consideration as a complete work. The kireji lends the verse structural support, allowing it to stand as an independent poem. The use of kireji distinguishes haiku and hokku from second and subsequent verses of renku which, although they may employ semantic and syntactic disjuncture, even to the point of occasionally end-stopping a phrase with a shUjoshi (少女詩 sentence ending particle), they do not generally employ kireji.
In English, since kireji have no direct equivalent, poets sometimes use punctuation such as a dash or ellipsis, or an implied break to create a juxtaposition intended to prompt the reader to reflect on the relationship between the two parts.
The kireji in the BashU examples below are, respectively, "ya", "ya" (や) and "wo" (を).
Haiku movement in the West
The earliest westerner known to have written haiku was the Dutchman Hendrik Doeff (1764–1837), who was the Dutch commissioner in the Dejima trading post in Nagasaki, during the first years of the 19th century. One of his haiku:
inazuma no
kaina wo karan
kusamakura lend me your arms,
fast as thunderbolts,
for a pillow on my journey.
Although there were further attempts outside Japan to imitate the "hokku" in the early 1900s, there was little understanding of its principles. Early Western scholars such as Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935) and William George Aston were mostly dismissive of hokku's poetic value. One of the first advocates of English-language hokku was the Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. In "A Proposal to American Poets," published in the Reader magazine in February 1904, Noguchi gave a brief outline of the hokku and some of his own English efforts, ending with the exhortation, "Pray, you try Japanese Hokku, my American poets!" At about the same time the poet Sadakichi Hartmann was publishing original English-language hokku, as well as other Japanese forms in both English and French.
In France, haiku was introduced by Paul-Louis Couchoud around 1906. Couchoud's articles were read by early Imagist theoretician F. S. Flint, who passed on Couchoud's (somewhat idiosyncratic) ideas to other members of the proto-Imagist Poets' Club such as Ezra Pound. Amy Lowell made a trip to London to meet Pound and find out about haiku. She returned to the United States where she worked to interest others in this "new" form. Haiku subsequently had a considerable influence on Imagists in the 1910s, notably Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" of 1913, but, notwithstanding several efforts by Yone Noguchi to explain "the hokku spirit," there was as yet little understanding of the form and its history.
A translation of BashU's Oku no Hosomichi to Spanish was done in 1957 by the Mexican poet and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz in collaboration with Japanese diplomat Eikichi Hayashiya.
Henderson
In 1958, An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Basho to Shiki by Harold G. Henderson was published by Doubleday Anchor Books. This book was a revision of Henderson's earlier book titled The Bamboo Broom (Houghton Mifflin, 1934). After World War Two, Henderson and Blyth worked for the American Occupation in Japan and for the Imperial Household, respectively, and their shared appreciation of haiku helped form a bond between the two.
Henderson translated every hokku and haiku into a rhymed tercet (a-b-a), whereas the Japanese originals never used rhyme. Unlike Yasuda, however, he recognized that seventeen syllables in English are generally longer than the seventeen moras of a traditional Japanese haiku. Because the normal modes of English poetry depend on accentual meter rather than on syllabics, Henderson chose to emphasize the order of events and images in the originals. Nevertheless, many of Henderson's translations were in the five-seven-five pattern.
Contemporary English-language haiku
Today, haiku are written in many languages, but most poets outside of Japan are concentrated in the English-speaking countries and in the Balkans.
It is impossible to single out any current style or format or subject matter as definitive. Some of the more common practices in English are:
Use of three (or fewer) lines of 17 or fewer syllables;
Use of a season word (kigo);
Use of a cut (sometimes indicated by a punctuation mark) paralleling the Japanese use of kireji, to contrast and compare, implicitly, two events, images, or situations.
While traditional Japanese haiku has focused on nature and the place of humans in it, some modern haiku poets, both in Japan and the West, consider a broader range of subject matter suitable, including urban contexts. While pre-modern haiku avoided certain topics such as sex and overt violence, contemporary haiku sometimes deal with such themes.
The loosening of traditional standards has resulted in the term "haiku" being applied to brief English-language poems such as "mathemaku" and other kinds of pseudohaiku. Some sources claim that this is justified by the blurring of definitional boundaries in Japan.
Although the word "on" is often translated as "syllable", in fact one on is counted for a short syllable, an additional one for an elongated vowel, diphthong, or doubled consonant, and one more for an "n" at the end of a syllable. Thus, the word "haibun", though counted as two syllables in English, is counted as four on in Japanese (ha-i-bu-n). This is illustrated by the Issa haiku below, which contains 17 on but only 15 syllables. In addition, some sounds, such as "kyo" (きょ) can be perceived as two syllables in English but as a single on in Japanese. A word that illustrates both these issues is "Tokyo", which is perceived as having three syllables in English (To-ky-o) but four moras in Japanese (To-o-kyo-o).
The word onji (音字; "sound symbol") is sometimes used in referring to Japanese sound units in English although this word is no longer current in Japanese. In Japanese, each on corresponds to a kana character (or sometimes digraph) and hence ji (or "character") is also sometimes used as the count unit.
In 1973, the Haiku Society of America noted that the then norm for writers of haiku in English was to use seventeen syllables but they also noted a trend towards shorter haiku. This trend is borne out by the Winter 2010 edition of Frogpond, which contains haiku with an average of 10.5 syllables, varying from six at the shortest to 15 at the longest.
Some translators of Japanese poetry have noted that about twelve syllables in English approximates the duration of seventeen Japanese on.
haiku traditionally contains a kigo, a defined word or phrase that symbolizes or implies the season of the poem.
Kigo are often in the form of metonyms and hence can be difficult for those who lack Japanese cultural references to spot. The BashU examples below include "kawazu", literally "frog" but implying spring time (when frogs emerge into the paddy fields) and "shigure", a rain shower in late autumn or early winter.
Among traditionalist Japanese haiku writers, kigo are considered requirements of the form. Kigo are not always included in non-Japanese haiku or by modern writers of Japanese "free-form" haiku.
In Japanese haiku a kireji, or cutting word, typically appears at the end of one of the verse's three phrases. A kireji fills a role somewhat analagous to a caesura in classical western poetry or to a volta in sonnets. Depending on which cutting word is chosen, and its position within the verse, it may briefly cut the stream of thought, suggesting a parallel between the preceding and following phrases, or it may provide a dignified ending, concluding the verse with a heightened sense of closure.
The fundamental aesthetic quality of both hokku and haiku is that it is internally sufficient, independent of context, and will bear consideration as a complete work. The kireji lends the verse structural support, allowing it to stand as an independent poem. The use of kireji distinguishes haiku and hokku from second and subsequent verses of renku which, although they may employ semantic and syntactic disjuncture, even to the point of occasionally end-stopping a phrase with a shUjoshi (少女詩 sentence ending particle), they do not generally employ kireji.
In English, since kireji have no direct equivalent, poets sometimes use punctuation such as a dash or ellipsis, or an implied break to create a juxtaposition intended to prompt the reader to reflect on the relationship between the two parts.
The kireji in the BashU examples below are, respectively, "ya", "ya" (や) and "wo" (を).
Haiku movement in the West
The earliest westerner known to have written haiku was the Dutchman Hendrik Doeff (1764–1837), who was the Dutch commissioner in the Dejima trading post in Nagasaki, during the first years of the 19th century. One of his haiku:
inazuma no
kaina wo karan
kusamakura lend me your arms,
fast as thunderbolts,
for a pillow on my journey.
Although there were further attempts outside Japan to imitate the "hokku" in the early 1900s, there was little understanding of its principles. Early Western scholars such as Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935) and William George Aston were mostly dismissive of hokku's poetic value. One of the first advocates of English-language hokku was the Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. In "A Proposal to American Poets," published in the Reader magazine in February 1904, Noguchi gave a brief outline of the hokku and some of his own English efforts, ending with the exhortation, "Pray, you try Japanese Hokku, my American poets!" At about the same time the poet Sadakichi Hartmann was publishing original English-language hokku, as well as other Japanese forms in both English and French.
In France, haiku was introduced by Paul-Louis Couchoud around 1906. Couchoud's articles were read by early Imagist theoretician F. S. Flint, who passed on Couchoud's (somewhat idiosyncratic) ideas to other members of the proto-Imagist Poets' Club such as Ezra Pound. Amy Lowell made a trip to London to meet Pound and find out about haiku. She returned to the United States where she worked to interest others in this "new" form. Haiku subsequently had a considerable influence on Imagists in the 1910s, notably Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" of 1913, but, notwithstanding several efforts by Yone Noguchi to explain "the hokku spirit," there was as yet little understanding of the form and its history.
A translation of BashU's Oku no Hosomichi to Spanish was done in 1957 by the Mexican poet and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz in collaboration with Japanese diplomat Eikichi Hayashiya.
Henderson
In 1958, An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Basho to Shiki by Harold G. Henderson was published by Doubleday Anchor Books. This book was a revision of Henderson's earlier book titled The Bamboo Broom (Houghton Mifflin, 1934). After World War Two, Henderson and Blyth worked for the American Occupation in Japan and for the Imperial Household, respectively, and their shared appreciation of haiku helped form a bond between the two.
Henderson translated every hokku and haiku into a rhymed tercet (a-b-a), whereas the Japanese originals never used rhyme. Unlike Yasuda, however, he recognized that seventeen syllables in English are generally longer than the seventeen moras of a traditional Japanese haiku. Because the normal modes of English poetry depend on accentual meter rather than on syllabics, Henderson chose to emphasize the order of events and images in the originals. Nevertheless, many of Henderson's translations were in the five-seven-five pattern.
Contemporary English-language haiku
Today, haiku are written in many languages, but most poets outside of Japan are concentrated in the English-speaking countries and in the Balkans.
It is impossible to single out any current style or format or subject matter as definitive. Some of the more common practices in English are:
Use of three (or fewer) lines of 17 or fewer syllables;
Use of a season word (kigo);
Use of a cut (sometimes indicated by a punctuation mark) paralleling the Japanese use of kireji, to contrast and compare, implicitly, two events, images, or situations.
While traditional Japanese haiku has focused on nature and the place of humans in it, some modern haiku poets, both in Japan and the West, consider a broader range of subject matter suitable, including urban contexts. While pre-modern haiku avoided certain topics such as sex and overt violence, contemporary haiku sometimes deal with such themes.
The loosening of traditional standards has resulted in the term "haiku" being applied to brief English-language poems such as "mathemaku" and other kinds of pseudohaiku. Some sources claim that this is justified by the blurring of definitional boundaries in Japan.
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