The great Sakka from Avatar the last airbender was decent at Haiku. This was my first encounter with this type of poetry when i was a kid.
so i have been looking at the history of Haiku and there are many different forms diverging from its ancient origins in Japan. There are four masters of old; Matsuo Basho, Kobayashi Issa, Masaoka Shiki and Yosa Buson. Each creating divergent forms of Haiku.
Here are examples from the Masters. I have highlighted Haikus that are my favourite.
Matsuo Basho
Here are three examples of haiku poems from Basho Matsuo (1644-1694), considered the greatest haiku poet:
An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.
Autumn moonlight—
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut.
In the twilight rain
these brilliant-hued hibiscus —
A lovely sunset.
Yosa Buson
Here are three examples of haiku poems from Yosa Buson (1716-1784), a haiku master poet and painter:
A summer river being crossed
how pleasing
with sandals in my hands!
Light of the moon
Moves west, flowers’ shadows
Creep eastward.
In the moonlight,
The color and scent of the wisteria
Seems far away.
Kobayashi Issa
Here are three examples of haiku from Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), a renowned haiku poet:
O snail
Climb Mount Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!
Trusting the Buddha, good and bad,
I bid farewell
To the departing year.
Everything I touch
with tenderness, alas,
pricks like a bramble.
Masaoka Shiki
Here are seven examples of haiku poems from Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), credited with reviving the haiku and developing its modern format:
I want to sleep
Swat the flies
Softly, please.
After killing
a spider, how lonely I feel
in the cold of night!
For love and for hate
I swat a fly and offer it
to an ant.
A mountain village
under the piled-up snow
the sound of water.
Night; and once again,
the while I wait for you, cold wind
turns into rain.
The summer river:
although there is a bridge, my horse
goes through the water.
A lightning flash:
between the forest trees
I have seen water.
Natsume Soseki
Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) was a widely respected novelist who also had many fairy tales and haiku published. Here are three of examples of his haiku:
The lamp once out
Cool stars enter
The window frame.
Plum flower temple:
Voices rise
From the foothills
The crow has flown away:
swaying in the evening sun,
a leafless tree.
In Japanese, there are five moras in the first and third line, and seven in the second, following the standard 5-7-5 structure of haiku. However, this rhythm is lost in translation, as not every English word has the same number of syllables, or moras, as its Japanese counterpart. For example, haiku has two syllables in English. In Japanese, it has three.
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