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The Art of Haiku: Its History through Poems and Paintings by Japanese Masters
In the past hundred years, haiku has gone far beyond its Japanese origins to become a worldwide phenomenon—with the classic poetic form growing and evolving as it has adapted to the needs of the whole range of languages and cultures that have embraced it. This proliferation of the joy of haiku is cause for celebration—but it can also compel us to go back to the to look at haiku’s development during the centuries before it was known outside Japan. This in-depth study of haiku history begins with the great early masters of the form—like Basho, Buson, and Issa—and goes all the way to twentieth-century greats, like Santoka. It also focuses on an important aspect of traditional haiku that is less known in the haiku art. All the great haiku masters created paintings (called haiga ) or calligraphy in connection with their poems, and the words and images were intended to be enjoyed together, enhancing each other, and each adding its own dimension to the reader’s and viewer’s understanding. Here one of the leading haiku scholars of the West takes us on a tour of haiku poetry’s evolution, providing along the way a wealth of examples of the poetry and the art inspired by it.
338 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 2012
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July 1, 2023
The best single volume about haiku in the English language, imo. It's difficult for me to explain how impressive the best haiku are, so I want to reproduce some of the greatest haiku by the 'Big Four' (slightly altering Addiss's translations, in some cases), in order to give a basic sense of the genre:
Basho:
The sea darkens—
a wild duck’s call
is faintly white
A dragonfly
vainly trying to settle
onto a blade of grass
A wild sea—
flowing toward Sado Isle
the River of Heaven
Old pond—
a frog jumps in
the sound of water
Buson:
Pear-tree blossoms—
a woman reads a letter
in the moonlight
The morning breeze
ripples the fur
of the caterpillar
On the temple bell
perched and asleep—
a butterfly
When the axe strikes,
startled by the fragrance—
winter grove
Issa:
Her mother eats
the bitter parts—
mountain persimmons
The turnip-puller
points the way
with a turnip
Autumn wind—
the red flowers my daughter
liked to pluck
The young woman
plants seedlings toward
her crying child
Shiki:
Lights begin to twinkle
on the islands near and far—
the spring sea
The sparrow hops
along the veranda
with wet feet
Roses—
the flowers are easy to paint,
the leaves difficult
Glimmer of lamps—
in the royal city,
spring twilight
Beyond the 'Big Four,' there have also been, of course, many other haiku poets in the past few centuries, the most prominent of which were usually students of Basho and Buson, such as Taigi and Kikaku. There are also a few interesting haiku poets from the mid-to-late twentieth century, such as Yamaguchi, Santoka, and Ozaki, who (like Shiki) incorporated modern imagery into their poems.
First love—
their faces close together
by the paper lantern
Taigi
Sacred dances at night—
their breath is white
behind the masks
Kikaku
The tree-frog
riding a banana leaf
rustles and sways
Kikaku
The lark sings in heaven
sings on earth
sings as it rises
Seisensui
The falling blossom
returns to its branch—
a butterfly!
Moritake
River in summer—
immersing the scarlet end
of an iron chain
Yamaguchi
There is also a tradition, beginning in the early eighteenth century, of anonymous bawdy or humorous haiku without any of the formal rules or elegance of the mainstream haiku tradition. These poems are called senryu, after their creator (Senryu Karai). Some of my favorite 5-7-5 poems are in this format:
Everyone unhappy
with their roles—
amateur theater
The pediatrician
first takes the pulse
of the stuffed tiger
A light-hearted woman
ascends the stairs
rhythmically
How sorrowful—
the deserted infant
smiles up at the watchman
The bird set free,
overjoyed,
collides with a tree
Searching for
the lost child
with his own drum
* * *
In Orwell’s essay “A Hanging,” he recounts his experience of watching a condemned man, walking toward the gallows, who swerves to avoid a puddle. Ten thousand miles away and a couple centuries earlier, an anonymous Japanese poet made an identical observation:
On the way to death—
but he avoids
the mud of the road
While haiku do not have a clear equivalent in Western poetry, I think that Western prose may actually be a closer fit. Haiku are strongly akin to particularly apposite prose passages that capture something of the subtle, beautiful, mysterious, or tragicomic elements of existence. (As Orwell writes of the condemned man swerving to avoid the puddle: “I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.”)
The experience of reading haiku is similar to reading a novel or essay and stumbling across a particularly felicitous observation or turn of phrase—Flaubert, Joyce, and Proust are especially good at this—that makes you stop and marvel at its perfection, at the sense that the author has somehow captured the universal in the particular. Haiku are a perfect example of James Wood’s description of the best literary metaphors as leading to “a tiny shock of surprise, followed by a feeling of inevitability,” or of the line from Yeats about a poem making a sound when it is finished “like the click of a lid of a perfectly made box.”
Ernst Haas and other fine art photographers have pointed out the strong resemblance between haiku and photography—quite rightly, as haiku are objective descriptions imbued (as the best photographs are) with something more than mere objectivity. The following haiku are, I think, very close to photographs:
The year’s first snow—
placed on a sack of rice
a small lantern
Issa
Covered with moss
the stone basin stands to one side
of flowering cherry trees
Basho
Lined-up warehouses
and behind them the swallows
zig-zag
Boncho
The morning is chill—
the shadow of the tea-basket
on the fence
Issa
Similar to photography, haiku is a “democratic” art—it is very easy to take a reasonably good photo or write a reasonably good haiku, but very, very difficult to master either art-form. Both haiku and photography also have the shared danger of easily falling into the banal or the merely objective, a simple recording of a scene that lacks the spark of transcendence—prose without poetry. Blyth rightly states that “Shiki’s pure, yet meaningful objectivity is difficult, because a hundred percent objectivity is a mere photograph.” Shiki agrees: “If we do not have the high art of Buson, we have something more creative than a photograph.” And as Buson himself put it: “Haiku values verses that detach themselves from the mundane while using mundane language, but such an art of detachment is very difficult to put into practice.” In other words, it’s difficult to take a photo that isn’t just a photo.
* * *
Japanese poems are particularly difficult to translate into English. As one translator puts it, Japanese poetry is “roughly equivalent to removing from any given paragraph or passage of English verse every pronoun and every other subject and then casually shuffling the clauses; the effect is often daunting.” One of the first Westerners to encounter the Japanese language, a Portuguese Jesuit in the late sixteenth century, summarized his difficulties by writing a letter back to his superiors reporting reporting how the Japanese conjugate the verb “to be”:
Degozaru = I am
Degozaru = Thou art
Degozaru = He is
Degozaru = We are
Degozaru = You are
Degozaru = They are
To be clear, this was not a misunderstanding—“Degozaru” is the correct translation in all six instances. To give a more concrete example, the following haiku by Issa:
Even her yawn
has a melody—
the tea picker
Can in fact be translated as:
Even their yawn
has a melody—
the tea pickers
There is no indication in the Japanese, and translators vary between “her,” “his,” and “their.” The Chinese language is quite similar, in this sense. Wang Wei’s most famous poem, translated literally, is as follows:
empty mountain not see people
only hear people voice echo
return light enter deep forest
again shine green moss on/ascend
There are many options for translating this, similar to Japanese poetry. Hinton decides on:
No one seen; among empty mountains,
hints of drifting voice, faint, no more.
Entering these deep woods, late sunlight
flares on green moss again, and rises.
In other words, haiku do not have the usual subjects, pronouns, tenses, etc., that we are accustomed to in English. I’ve found that the best way to read Buson’s famous poem:
When the axe strikes,
startled by the fragrance—
winter grove
Is simply as:
hatchet-strike
sudden-wood-smell
winter-grove
The English articles and prepositions should of course be added for any translation, but the poem can be better experienced, I think, by simply absorbing the three lines all at once without the usual machinery of the English language.
To give an example of the variance of haiku translations -- Addiss's are always amazing, for the record -- here are four different translators’ renditions of one of my favorite haiku, the death poem (i.e., final poem, deathbed poem) of Ome Shushiki (1668–1725), a poetess associated with Kikaku and Basho’s school:
I wake and find
the colored iris
I saw in my dream
Even after waking
from the dream
I’ll see the colors of irises
Waking from my dream,
what a color
were the iris flowers!
After a dream
how real
the iris
All four of these translations are perfectly valid. The first translation seems to be the obvious favorite, to me, and most likely contains the meaning that she intended, but this is an interpretation. The final version, though very bare, is an accurate translation.
* * *
While many haiku are difficult to appreciate at first (or at least they were for me), I think a few are especially challenging. Some of the most subtly interesting haiku are a result of the 'Big Four' breaking the traditional pattern of the form. My favorite example of this, and probably my favorite single haiku, is by Buson:
A pink peony,
a silver cat,
a golden butterfly
I’ve read this haiku many times over the years but am still at a loss to properly express how impressive it is. But I also recognize that this poem will likely seem banal to most readers. This may be an example where one can only appreciate the full effect by seeing how Buson is breaking the usual haiku form. It would be as if one of Shakespeare’s sonnets didn’t end with a couplet, but somehow broke the form completely, yet in a way that transformed and also improved the poem. With this haiku, I’m guessing that Buson tried to find a way to use the standard format, but then decided that the elements worked too well together and were too true to his experience, and so he used three completely discrete images, which is almost never done in haiku—I can’t think of another example offhand, out of the forty thousand or so haiku that I’ve read. As absurd as this may sound to the reader, Buson’s simple lines about a flower, a cat, and a butterfly are a creative leap of genius.
The following is one of Basho’s most celebrated poems, written after hiking up a cliffside path for a scenic view of Matsushima Bay (a famously beautiful location):
Matsushima!
ah, Matsushima—
Matsushima!
This breaks the haiku form, but somehow is more true to his experience, and more effective as a poem, than any other haiku could be. Basho is so moved that he can only stand before Matsushima in awe.
A reader without any prior interest in haiku may read these poems and wonder how anyone could consider them to be the finest work of the greatest Japanese poets; and it is indeed hard to explain. I can only respond that the art of haiku is subtle, but I think well worth the effort.
Basho:
The sea darkens—
a wild duck’s call
is faintly white
A dragonfly
vainly trying to settle
onto a blade of grass
A wild sea—
flowing toward Sado Isle
the River of Heaven
Old pond—
a frog jumps in
the sound of water
Buson:
Pear-tree blossoms—
a woman reads a letter
in the moonlight
The morning breeze
ripples the fur
of the caterpillar
On the temple bell
perched and asleep—
a butterfly
When the axe strikes,
startled by the fragrance—
winter grove
Issa:
Her mother eats
the bitter parts—
mountain persimmons
The turnip-puller
points the way
with a turnip
Autumn wind—
the red flowers my daughter
liked to pluck
The young woman
plants seedlings toward
her crying child
Shiki:
Lights begin to twinkle
on the islands near and far—
the spring sea
The sparrow hops
along the veranda
with wet feet
Roses—
the flowers are easy to paint,
the leaves difficult
Glimmer of lamps—
in the royal city,
spring twilight
Beyond the 'Big Four,' there have also been, of course, many other haiku poets in the past few centuries, the most prominent of which were usually students of Basho and Buson, such as Taigi and Kikaku. There are also a few interesting haiku poets from the mid-to-late twentieth century, such as Yamaguchi, Santoka, and Ozaki, who (like Shiki) incorporated modern imagery into their poems.
First love—
their faces close together
by the paper lantern
Taigi
Sacred dances at night—
their breath is white
behind the masks
Kikaku
The tree-frog
riding a banana leaf
rustles and sways
Kikaku
The lark sings in heaven
sings on earth
sings as it rises
Seisensui
The falling blossom
returns to its branch—
a butterfly!
Moritake
River in summer—
immersing the scarlet end
of an iron chain
Yamaguchi
There is also a tradition, beginning in the early eighteenth century, of anonymous bawdy or humorous haiku without any of the formal rules or elegance of the mainstream haiku tradition. These poems are called senryu, after their creator (Senryu Karai). Some of my favorite 5-7-5 poems are in this format:
Everyone unhappy
with their roles—
amateur theater
The pediatrician
first takes the pulse
of the stuffed tiger
A light-hearted woman
ascends the stairs
rhythmically
How sorrowful—
the deserted infant
smiles up at the watchman
The bird set free,
overjoyed,
collides with a tree
Searching for
the lost child
with his own drum
* * *
In Orwell’s essay “A Hanging,” he recounts his experience of watching a condemned man, walking toward the gallows, who swerves to avoid a puddle. Ten thousand miles away and a couple centuries earlier, an anonymous Japanese poet made an identical observation:
On the way to death—
but he avoids
the mud of the road
While haiku do not have a clear equivalent in Western poetry, I think that Western prose may actually be a closer fit. Haiku are strongly akin to particularly apposite prose passages that capture something of the subtle, beautiful, mysterious, or tragicomic elements of existence. (As Orwell writes of the condemned man swerving to avoid the puddle: “I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.”)
The experience of reading haiku is similar to reading a novel or essay and stumbling across a particularly felicitous observation or turn of phrase—Flaubert, Joyce, and Proust are especially good at this—that makes you stop and marvel at its perfection, at the sense that the author has somehow captured the universal in the particular. Haiku are a perfect example of James Wood’s description of the best literary metaphors as leading to “a tiny shock of surprise, followed by a feeling of inevitability,” or of the line from Yeats about a poem making a sound when it is finished “like the click of a lid of a perfectly made box.”
Ernst Haas and other fine art photographers have pointed out the strong resemblance between haiku and photography—quite rightly, as haiku are objective descriptions imbued (as the best photographs are) with something more than mere objectivity. The following haiku are, I think, very close to photographs:
The year’s first snow—
placed on a sack of rice
a small lantern
Issa
Covered with moss
the stone basin stands to one side
of flowering cherry trees
Basho
Lined-up warehouses
and behind them the swallows
zig-zag
Boncho
The morning is chill—
the shadow of the tea-basket
on the fence
Issa
Similar to photography, haiku is a “democratic” art—it is very easy to take a reasonably good photo or write a reasonably good haiku, but very, very difficult to master either art-form. Both haiku and photography also have the shared danger of easily falling into the banal or the merely objective, a simple recording of a scene that lacks the spark of transcendence—prose without poetry. Blyth rightly states that “Shiki’s pure, yet meaningful objectivity is difficult, because a hundred percent objectivity is a mere photograph.” Shiki agrees: “If we do not have the high art of Buson, we have something more creative than a photograph.” And as Buson himself put it: “Haiku values verses that detach themselves from the mundane while using mundane language, but such an art of detachment is very difficult to put into practice.” In other words, it’s difficult to take a photo that isn’t just a photo.
* * *
Japanese poems are particularly difficult to translate into English. As one translator puts it, Japanese poetry is “roughly equivalent to removing from any given paragraph or passage of English verse every pronoun and every other subject and then casually shuffling the clauses; the effect is often daunting.” One of the first Westerners to encounter the Japanese language, a Portuguese Jesuit in the late sixteenth century, summarized his difficulties by writing a letter back to his superiors reporting reporting how the Japanese conjugate the verb “to be”:
Degozaru = I am
Degozaru = Thou art
Degozaru = He is
Degozaru = We are
Degozaru = You are
Degozaru = They are
To be clear, this was not a misunderstanding—“Degozaru” is the correct translation in all six instances. To give a more concrete example, the following haiku by Issa:
Even her yawn
has a melody—
the tea picker
Can in fact be translated as:
Even their yawn
has a melody—
the tea pickers
There is no indication in the Japanese, and translators vary between “her,” “his,” and “their.” The Chinese language is quite similar, in this sense. Wang Wei’s most famous poem, translated literally, is as follows:
empty mountain not see people
only hear people voice echo
return light enter deep forest
again shine green moss on/ascend
There are many options for translating this, similar to Japanese poetry. Hinton decides on:
No one seen; among empty mountains,
hints of drifting voice, faint, no more.
Entering these deep woods, late sunlight
flares on green moss again, and rises.
In other words, haiku do not have the usual subjects, pronouns, tenses, etc., that we are accustomed to in English. I’ve found that the best way to read Buson’s famous poem:
When the axe strikes,
startled by the fragrance—
winter grove
Is simply as:
hatchet-strike
sudden-wood-smell
winter-grove
The English articles and prepositions should of course be added for any translation, but the poem can be better experienced, I think, by simply absorbing the three lines all at once without the usual machinery of the English language.
To give an example of the variance of haiku translations -- Addiss's are always amazing, for the record -- here are four different translators’ renditions of one of my favorite haiku, the death poem (i.e., final poem, deathbed poem) of Ome Shushiki (1668–1725), a poetess associated with Kikaku and Basho’s school:
I wake and find
the colored iris
I saw in my dream
Even after waking
from the dream
I’ll see the colors of irises
Waking from my dream,
what a color
were the iris flowers!
After a dream
how real
the iris
All four of these translations are perfectly valid. The first translation seems to be the obvious favorite, to me, and most likely contains the meaning that she intended, but this is an interpretation. The final version, though very bare, is an accurate translation.
* * *
While many haiku are difficult to appreciate at first (or at least they were for me), I think a few are especially challenging. Some of the most subtly interesting haiku are a result of the 'Big Four' breaking the traditional pattern of the form. My favorite example of this, and probably my favorite single haiku, is by Buson:
A pink peony,
a silver cat,
a golden butterfly
I’ve read this haiku many times over the years but am still at a loss to properly express how impressive it is. But I also recognize that this poem will likely seem banal to most readers. This may be an example where one can only appreciate the full effect by seeing how Buson is breaking the usual haiku form. It would be as if one of Shakespeare’s sonnets didn’t end with a couplet, but somehow broke the form completely, yet in a way that transformed and also improved the poem. With this haiku, I’m guessing that Buson tried to find a way to use the standard format, but then decided that the elements worked too well together and were too true to his experience, and so he used three completely discrete images, which is almost never done in haiku—I can’t think of another example offhand, out of the forty thousand or so haiku that I’ve read. As absurd as this may sound to the reader, Buson’s simple lines about a flower, a cat, and a butterfly are a creative leap of genius.
The following is one of Basho’s most celebrated poems, written after hiking up a cliffside path for a scenic view of Matsushima Bay (a famously beautiful location):
Matsushima!
ah, Matsushima—
Matsushima!
This breaks the haiku form, but somehow is more true to his experience, and more effective as a poem, than any other haiku could be. Basho is so moved that he can only stand before Matsushima in awe.
A reader without any prior interest in haiku may read these poems and wonder how anyone could consider them to be the finest work of the greatest Japanese poets; and it is indeed hard to explain. I can only respond that the art of haiku is subtle, but I think well worth the effort.
February 21, 2014
Probably the best starting point for an English treatment of Haiku out there. In fact, not only is it a great sourcebook for the most famous haiku and practitioners, it spends a significant amount of time providing and talking about the poetic forms out of which haiku evolved. The chapter introducing tanka poetry is highly valuable in itself. There are also 20 odd pages of picture of famous haiga, the scroll paintings which some poets created to contain poetry within suggestive visual elements. All the greats of haiku are given substantive space and sensitive analysis. The chapter on Buson is excellent. The only complaint I have with Addiss, and it's a small one, is at times he is too intrusive in his explanations of the possible meanings of some of these astoundingly compressed sound pictures. Where Addiss is particularly strong is in emphasizing the sound of the originals in Japanese. When haiku are looked at in this way you grasp the onomatopoeia at work, something completely lost in translation and, from those I've read, also absent from English haiku. All translations are accompanied by the originals in romaji. This provides the reader with the opportunity to try, if he/she wishes, to translate the originals on their own with the help of a Japanese(Romaji)-English dictionary. Finally the book is high quality in terms of presentation and binding. A bargain, particularly if you can get a hold of it in hardcover.
September 23, 2012
Pefect for autumn-
Wonderful and exhaustive
overview of the Haiku!
Wonderful and exhaustive
overview of the Haiku!
April 2, 2023
laser focused and approachable.
Quickly covers the history of haiku while highlighting seminal poets and poems. It adds context for common themes within the form while providing biographical information where helpful to demystify more opaque texts.
A good starting spot for one interested in Haiku or even just as a step towards poetry outside of the English tradition
Quickly covers the history of haiku while highlighting seminal poets and poems. It adds context for common themes within the form while providing biographical information where helpful to demystify more opaque texts.
A good starting spot for one interested in Haiku or even just as a step towards poetry outside of the English tradition
March 16, 2017
My favorite haiku book to date, as it covers a comprehensive history of haiku, haiku painting (haiga), tanka, waka, and supplies great examples of haiku by the great masters throughout its history. I keep reading it over and over again for inspiration and knowledge.
May 29, 2017
A book that gets the balance right: lots of haiku, with just enough exegesis. The book also makes the point that a good deal of haiku needs to be understood in the context of its calligraphy and art, with pictures and commentary that nicely elucidate this point. A thoroughly satisfying history of the great of haiku, up to the beginning of the modern era.
February 9, 2022
é apenas o livro mais completo que alguma vez li sobre a essência e a história da poesia japonesa. desde as suas origens ancestrais (chinesas e outras) e primeiras regras formais, o desenvolvimento da waka/tanka (31 sílabas, num arranjo 5-7-5-7-7), até uma forma mais estável, que durante anos se chamou hokku ou haikai, se popularizou e chegou até nós (17 sílabas, na conhecida trindade 5-7-5) - sobretudo após o aparecimento do chamado quarteto de geniais criadores (bashō, buson, issa, shiki, cujas biografias estão igualmente presentes) - com a designação de haiku. exemplos? mais de 900 poemas são aqui apresentados e traduzidos pelo autor. e também não é esquecida essa forma peculiar de representar pictoricamente os haiku, o haiga (contracção de haikuga, imagem do haiku), sendo mostrados e comentados alguns belíssimos exemplares.
February 17, 2021
A brilliant, clear history of haiku. I was worried it would be dry or dull, but I always found this to be engaging. I'm so glad I bought a physical copy of this book to refer back to when I want. And the haiga are lovely.
August 3, 2020
Excellent scholarly read on the origins, structure and beauty of haikus
November 22, 2024
Lovely old haiku with a sprinkling of modern ones.
Beautifully designed with elegant, minimal illustrations.
In the intro, the author does a great job of explaining how haiku can be translated.
Beautifully designed with elegant, minimal illustrations.
In the intro, the author does a great job of explaining how haiku can be translated.
January 18, 2026
Excellent scholarly read on the origins, structure and beauty of haikus
January 29, 2024
Fantastic breakdown of the history of haiku, renga and other forms of verse. Theres so many poets included that I had never heard of before, and this book has some of my favorite translations of any of these poems. A must-read if you're at all interested in Japanese poetry.
September 8, 2021
A history of haiku, from its roots in tanka and renga, then its beginnings as hokku and haikai, and its derivatives in haibun, haiga, and senryū. All translations are from Addiss unless noted in the end notes, which are indicated with superscript numerals in the text.
Addiss makes an effort to include and recognize women among the artists he profiles, though, oddly, there's less of that the further the book gets into the modern age. His translations are elegant and sensible without any nonsense, though much of his commentary on the poetry itself felt simplistic, and a lot of it I didn't agree with, but that's the beauty of haiku, everyone brings their own meaning to it. However, there were plenty of times a poem was presented without commentary that I found needed additional context in order to be understood, even on a surface level. The book includes about two dozen color plates in two groups and all are referenced and described in the text, which is an excellent use of color plates and everybody should do it instead of just plopping them in the middle of a book and expecting people to find meaning in them when they're so divorced from the text. It really enhanced my appreciation for, and understanding of, the art included.
The book has a brief pronunciation guide for Japanese vowels, end notes that cite sources and suggest further reading, a very small glossary, selected bibliography, and a woefully inadequate index.
A good introduction to the history and practice of haiku, but as the index isn't robust and within the text (and end notes) every internal page reference except one is wrong (one points to a blank page!) it isn't reliable as a reference, though the recommended reading and selected bib could be useful if one has access to a vigorous library system.
Contains (in part): references to child harm, animal harm.
Addiss makes an effort to include and recognize women among the artists he profiles, though, oddly, there's less of that the further the book gets into the modern age. His translations are elegant and sensible without any nonsense, though much of his commentary on the poetry itself felt simplistic, and a lot of it I didn't agree with, but that's the beauty of haiku, everyone brings their own meaning to it. However, there were plenty of times a poem was presented without commentary that I found needed additional context in order to be understood, even on a surface level. The book includes about two dozen color plates in two groups and all are referenced and described in the text, which is an excellent use of color plates and everybody should do it instead of just plopping them in the middle of a book and expecting people to find meaning in them when they're so divorced from the text. It really enhanced my appreciation for, and understanding of, the art included.
The book has a brief pronunciation guide for Japanese vowels, end notes that cite sources and suggest further reading, a very small glossary, selected bibliography, and a woefully inadequate index.
A good introduction to the history and practice of haiku, but as the index isn't robust and within the text (and end notes) every internal page reference except one is wrong (one points to a blank page!) it isn't reliable as a reference, though the recommended reading and selected bib could be useful if one has access to a vigorous library system.
Contains (in part): references to child harm, animal harm.
July 20, 2014
If you enjoy short poems or delightful visual art, this book is for you. It was my first introduction to haiga, visual art specifically created to accompany haiku. Addiss illustrates his work liberally with exemplary poems and samples of visual works created to accompany them, stressing the point that they were created to be enjoyed together. He traces the history of short form poetry in Japanese society, beginning with tanka, a five line form poem popular early in the previous millennium and continued into the present day, and contrasts it with the Chinese style poetry which was popular in the imperial court. He follows this with biographies of the three acknowledged masters of Haiku and Haiban, Basho (17th century), Buson (18h century)and Issa (19th century). The chapters on these three include illustrations of their artwork, as do the sections on Zen poets and early 20th century haiku poets. He ends the work at World War II, stating that Haiku has since become a world wide phenomenon, and a description of it in recent years would fill another book. I found it a delightful read.
June 1, 2014
What a wonderful book!!! From the great masters to the little known poets (at least in the Western world), this collection is rich in the history of haiku; the background, the beautiful and whimsical images, the various transformations through the years, and the way it branched out to take many forms. A book I will treasure and reread in years to come.
August 3, 2015
I got what I wanted out of the book, but really the first few chapters are enough. A bunch of history which is interesting, but not necessary. I guess, as a teacher, I didn't feel taught, I felt told some things. But I do know better what a haiku is and how I plan on writing them. Not bad, but certainly not great, either, as a teaching tool.
August 29, 2012
I would have so loved to have the printed form of this book and not the e-book. Anyway it was a good and interesting reading but you have to have a passion for this type of poetry anyway.
THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND SHAMBALA PUBLICATIONS FOR THE PREVIEW
THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND SHAMBALA PUBLICATIONS FOR THE PREVIEW
August 26, 2014
This a good book to not only provide an extensive range of Haikus, the background and history of the form and poets for it.s roots in earlier forms. The plate of actual artist tanzaku work from Basho to Buson are great addition.
September 7, 2012
My review in the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-R...
October 21, 2015
Informative, engaging, very worth reading.
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