Haiku

A traditional haiku has seventeen on, sound units similar to syllables, in three phrases of 5, 7 and 5, and is written in Japanese in a single vertical line. It usually includes a kigo, a word linked to a season, such as frog (spring), cicada (summer), moon (autumn) or snow (winter). Poets consult seasonal almanacs (saijiki) that list thousands of such words.

A kireji, a 'cutting word' such as ya, kana or keri, divides the poem into two parts and adds emphasis or emotion, creating a juxtaposition between two images. Some modern poets write free-form haiku without fixed metre or season word, and senryū, a sister form with the same length, deals humorously with human nature rather than the seasons.

Four poets are traditionally regarded as the great masters of haiku. Their poems are learned by every Japanese schoolchild.

Some of the best-known haiku are closely tied to real places, many of them on Bashō's journeys. In 1689 Bashō set out from Edo with his companion Sora on a journey of about five months through northern Japan, recorded in Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North), published after his death.

Many towns commemorate haiku poets with museums, stone monuments bearing poems (kuhi) and walking routes. Matsuyama, Shiki's hometown, places haiku post boxes around the city. Places on Bashō's Narrow Road, such as Matsushima, Hiraizumi and Yamadera, display his poems, and the journey ended at Ōgaki in Gifu Prefecture.

Haiku is written by millions of people in Japan. Newspapers publish weekly readers' haiku columns selected by leading poets, television programmes critique amateur poems, and haiku groups (kukai) meet to compose and judge each other's work anonymously. Outside Japan, haiku spread in the twentieth century through translations and the Imagist and Beat poets; poems in other languages usually keep the brevity and seasonal focus rather than an exact seventeen-syllable count.