Good day dear reader! Today I want to talk about one romantic way of seduction. I warn you right away, if you are used to seeking a girl with alcohol and chocolates and do not want to expand your “arsenal” and enrich your inner world, you can immediately close the article, because we will talk about hockey!

Haiku or another lesser known name is Heiko. Haiku is a genre of Japanese poetry. unrhymed tercet; consists of 17 syllables (5+7+5). Differs in simplicity of poetic language, freedom of presentation.

haiku girl

Although at first glance this is a simple set of sentences, in fact, they contain great meaning and beauty. Tell the girl a few haiku about love and the beauty of the world, it will immediately turn her head and she will melt! The best thing is to try to compose yourself! But if you are really bad with a creative direction, then in this article, I will give a list of the most beautiful and suitable for quoting a haiku girl. This is exactly why I am writing this article.

At night without you

Fog obscures the eye

Sorrow oozes

But your love

Flowing like a clear river

In my heart

Heart and love
Warm on the way
Give us hope.

Next to you...
I will keep in memory
The warmth of your hands

How wise by God

The roads are arranged

You will be returned

Those looks of love

How poems smell like the sun

In the branches of cherries

crumpled sheet

And your eyes are shining

new question

invite the month

Look at our love

Let her be illuminated

Became fate...

Is it not in our palms

Are we holding the sun?

Only kindness

Your body will cover

These nights

That, in principle, is the entire selection of the best haiku in my opinion on our topic!
There is another great activity! If you have at least a little developed creative thinking and your girlfriend has no problems with this, then it will be interesting to try composing haiku in pairs! With that I say goodbye to you!

Japan is a country with a very ancient and unique culture. Perhaps there is no other literary genre that expresses the Japanese national spirit in such a way as haiku does.

Haiku (haiku) is a lyrical poem, characterized by extreme brevity and peculiar poetics. It depicts the life of nature and the life of man against the backdrop of the cycle of the seasons.

In Japan, haiku were not simply invented by someone, but were the product of a centuries-old historical literary and poetic process. Until the 7th century, Japanese poetry was dominated by long verses - “nagauta”. In the 7th-8th centuries, the five-line “tanka” (literally “short song”), not yet divided into stanzas, becomes the legislator of Japanese literary poetry, displacing them. Later, tanka began to be clearly divided into three-line and couplet, but haiku did not yet exist. In the 12th century, chain verses "renga" (literally "strung stanzas") appeared, consisting of alternating three-line and couplet lines. Their first three-line was called the "initial stanza" or "haiku", but did not exist on its own. It was not until the 14th century that the renga reached its highest peak. The opening stanza was usually the best of its composition, and collections of exemplary haiku appeared, becoming a popular form of poetry. But only in the second half of the 17th century haiku as an independent phenomenon firmly established itself in Japanese literature.

Japanese poetry is syllabic, that is, its rhythm is based on the alternation of a certain number of syllables. There is no rhyme: the sound and rhythmic organization of the tercet is a matter of great concern for Japanese poets.

Hundreds, thousands of poets were and are fond of the addition of haiku. Among these countless names, there are four great names now known to the whole world: Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), Yosa Buson (1716-1783), Kobayashi Issa (1769-1827) and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). Far and wide these poets came from the Land of the Rising Sun. We found the most beautiful corners in the depths of the mountains, on the sea coast and sang them in verse. They put all the heat of their hearts into a few syllables of haiku. The reader will open the book - and as if with his own eyes he will see the green mountains of Yoshino, the waves of the surf will rustle under the wind in Suma Bay. The pine trees in Suminoe will sing a sad song.

Hokku has a stable meter. Each verse has a certain number of syllables: five in the first, seven in the second, and five in the third - a total of seventeen syllables. This does not exclude poetic liberties, especially among such bold innovative poets as Matsuo Basho was. He sometimes did not take into account the meter, striving to achieve the greatest poetic expressiveness.

The size of the haiku is so small that compared to it, the European sonnet seems like a big poem. It contains only a few words, and yet its capacity is relatively large. The art of writing haiku is, above all, the ability to say a lot in a few words.

Brevity makes haiku related to folk proverbs. Some three-verses have become popular in folk speech as proverbs, such as Basho's poem:

I'll say the word
Lips freeze.
Autumn whirlwind!

As a proverb, it means that "caution sometimes makes you keep silent." But most often, haiku differs from the proverb in its genre features. This is not an edifying saying, a short parable or a well-aimed joke, but a poetic picture sketched in one or two strokes. The task of the poet is to infect the reader with lyrical excitement, to awaken his imagination, and for this it is not necessary to paint a picture in all its details.

The collection of haiku cannot be “skimmed through with the eyes”, leafing through page after page. If the reader is passive and not attentive enough, he will not perceive the impulse sent to him by the poet. Japanese poetics takes into account the counter work of the reader's thought. So the blow of the bow and the reciprocal trembling of the string together give rise to music.

Hokku is small in size, but this does not detract from the poetic or philosophical meaning that the poet is able to give it, does not limit the scope of his thought. However, the poet, of course, cannot give a multilateral image and extensively, to the end, develop his thought within the limits of haiku. In each phenomenon, he is looking only for its climax.

Giving preference to the small, haiku sometimes painted a picture of a large scale:

On a high embankment - pines,
And between them the cherries show through, and the palace
In the depths of flowering trees...

In the three lines of Basho's poem there are three perspective plans.

Haiku is akin to the art of painting. They were often written on the subjects of paintings and, in turn, inspired artists; sometimes they turned into a component of the picture in the form of a calligraphic inscription on it. Sometimes poets resorted to methods of depiction akin to the art of painting. Such, for example, is Buson's three-verse:

Colza flowers around.
The sun is fading in the west.
The moon is rising in the east.

Wide fields are covered with yellow colza flowers, they seem especially bright in the rays of sunset. The pale moon rising in the east contrasts with the fireball of the setting sun. The poet does not tell us in detail what kind of lighting effect this creates, what colors are on his palette. He only offers to take a fresh look at the picture that everyone has seen, maybe dozens of times ... Grouping and choosing picturesque details - this is the main task of the poet. He has only two or three arrows in his quiver: not one must fly past.

Haiku is a small magic picture. It can be compared to a landscape sketch. You can paint a huge landscape on canvas, carefully drawing a picture, or you can sketch a tree bent under the wind and rain with a few strokes. That's how the Japanese poet, he "draws", outlining in a few words what we ourselves must conjecture, complete in our imagination. Very often haiku authors made illustrations for their poems.

Often the poet creates not visual, but sound images. The howling of the wind, the chirping of cicadas, the cries of a pheasant, the singing of a nightingale and a lark, the voice of a cuckoo - each sound is filled with a special meaning, gives rise to certain moods and feelings.

The lark sings
resonant blow in the thicket
The pheasant echoes him. (buson)

The Japanese poet does not unfold before the reader the entire panorama of possible ideas and associations that arise in connection with a given object or phenomenon. It only awakens the thought of the reader, gives it a certain direction.

On a bare branch
Raven sits alone.
Autumn evening. (Basho)

The poem looks like a monochrome ink drawing.

There is nothing superfluous here, everything is extremely simple. With the help of a few skillfully chosen details, a picture of late autumn is created. There is a lack of wind, nature seems to freeze in sad immobility. The poetic image, it would seem, is a little outlined, but it has a large capacity and, bewitching, leads away. The poet depicted a real landscape and through it - his state of mind. He speaks not of the loneliness of the raven, but of his own.

It is quite clear that there is a lack of agreement in haiku. The poem consists of only three verses. Each verse is very short. Most often, there are two meaningful words in a verse, not counting formal elements and exclamatory particles. Everything superfluous is squeezed out, eliminated; there is nothing left that serves only for decoration. The means of poetic speech are selected extremely sparingly: haiku avoids epithet or metaphor, if it can do without them. Sometimes the entire haiku is an extended metaphor, but its direct meaning is usually hidden in the subtext.

From the heart of a peony
The bee crawls slowly...
Oh, with what reluctance!

Basho composed this poem when leaving the hospitable home of his friend. It would be a mistake, however, in every haiku to look for such a double meaning. Most often, haiku is a concrete representation of the real world that does not require and does not allow any other interpretation.

Hokku teaches to look for hidden beauty in the simple, inconspicuous, everyday. Not only the famous, many times sung cherry blossoms are beautiful, but also the modest, imperceptible at first glance flowers of colza, shepherd's purse.

Take a close look!
Shepherd's purse flowers
You will see under the blanket. (Basho)

In another poem by Basho, the face of a fisherman at dawn resembles a blooming poppy, and both are equally good. Beauty can strike like a lightning strike:

I barely got better
Exhausted, until the night ...
And suddenly - wisteria flowers! (Basho)

Beauty can be deeply hidden. The feeling of beauty in nature and in human life is akin to a sudden comprehension of truth, the eternal principle, which, according to Buddhist teaching, is invisibly present in all phenomena of being. In haiku we find a new rethinking of this truth - the affirmation of beauty in the inconspicuous, ordinary:

They scare them, drive them from the fields!
Sparrows will fly up and hide
Under the protection of tea bushes. (Basho)

Trembling on the horse's tail
Spring cobwebs...
Tavern at noon. (Izen)

In Japanese poetry, haiku is always symbolic, always filled with deep feeling and philosophical content. Each of their lines carries a high semantic load.

How the autumn wind whistles!
Then only understand my poems,
When you spend the night in the field. (Matsuo Basho)

Throw a stone at me!
Cherry blossom branch
I'm broken now. (Chikarai Kikaku, Basho's student)

Not from ordinary people
The one who beckons
Tree without flowers. (Onitsura)

Here comes the moon
And every little bush
Invited to the feast. (Kobaashi Issa)

Deep meaning, passionate appeal, emotional tension in these short lines and, of course, the dynamics of thought or feeling!

When composing haiku, the poet must have mentioned what time of the year they are talking about. And haiku collections were also usually divided into four chapters: "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn", "Winter". If you carefully read the three-verse, you can always find a “seasonal” word in it. For example, about melt water, about flowers on a plum and cherry, about the first swallows, about a nightingale. Singing frogs are spoken of in spring poems; about cicadas, about cuckoo, about green grass, about lush peonies - in summer; about chrysanthemums, about scarlet maple leaves, about the sad trills of a cricket - in autumn; about bare groves, about cold wind, about snow, about hoarfrost - in winter. But haiku is not only about flowers, birds, wind and moon. Here a peasant is planting rice bores in a flooded field, here travelers have come to admire the snow cap on the sacred Mount Fuji. How many Japanese life will take here - both everyday and festive. One of the most revered holidays among the Japanese is the Cherry Blossom Festival. Its branch is the symbol of Japan. When cherry blossoms, everyone, from young to old, with whole families, with friends and relatives, gather in gardens and parks to admire the white and pink clouds of delicate petals. This is one of the oldest traditions of the Japanese. Prepare carefully for this spectacle. To choose a good place, sometimes you have to come a day earlier. The Japanese, as a rule, celebrate cherry blossom twice: with colleagues and with family. In the first case, this is a sacred duty that is not violated by anyone, in the second, it is a real pleasure. The contemplation of blossoming cherries has a beneficial effect on a person, sets him in a philosophical mood, causes admiration, joy, peace.

The haiku of the poet Issa are both lyrical and ironic:

In my native country
Cherry blossoms
And grass in the fields!

"Cherry, cherry blossom!" -
And about those old trees
They used to sing...

Spring again.
New stupidity is coming
Replace the old one.

Cherries and those
Can become nasty
To the squeal of mosquitoes.

Haiku is not just a poetic form, but something more - a certain way of thinking, a special way of seeing the world. Hokku connects the mundane and the spiritual, the small and the great, the natural and the human, the momentary and the eternal. Spring - Summer - Autumn - Winter - this traditional division has a wider meaning than the simple distribution of poems according to seasonal themes. In this single temporary space, not only nature moves and changes, but also the person himself, in whose life there are Spring - Summer - Autumn - Winter. The world of nature is connected with the world of man in eternity.

Whatever hockey we take, everywhere there is one main character - a man. The poets of Japan from their haiku try to tell how a person lives on earth, what he thinks about, how he is sad and having fun. And they help us to feel and understand beauty. After all, everything is beautiful in nature: a huge oak, and a nondescript blade of grass, and a red deer, and a green frog. Even if you think about mosquitoes in winter, you will immediately remember summer, the sun, walks in the forest.

Japanese poets teach us to take care of all living things, to pity all living things, because pity is a great feeling. Those who do not know how to truly regret will never become a kind person. Poets repeat again and again: look into the familiar and see the unexpected, look into the ugly and see the beautiful, look into the simple and see the complex, look into the particles and see the whole, look into the small and see the great. To see the beauty and not remain indifferent - that is what haiku poetry calls us to, glorifying humanity in Nature and inspiring the life of Man.

Japan is a country with a very peculiar culture. Its formation was largely facilitated by the peculiarities of the geographical location and geological factors. The Japanese were able to settle in the valleys and the coast, but they constantly suffer from typhoons, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that their national consciousness deifies natural forces, and poetic thought seeks to penetrate into the very essence of things. This desire is embodied in laconic forms of art.

Features of Japanese poetry

Before considering examples of haiku, it is necessary to pay attention to the features of the art of the Land of the Rising Sun. This laconism is expressed in different ways. It is characteristic of the Japanese garden with its empty space, and origami, and works of painting and poetry. The main principles in the art of the Land of the Rising Sun are naturalness, understatement, and minimalism.

In Japanese, words do not rhyme. Therefore, in this language, poetry familiar to the native inhabitant could not have developed. However, the Land of the Rising Sun gave the world no less beautiful works called haiku. They contain the wisdom of the eastern people, their unsurpassed ability to learn through natural phenomena the meaning of being and the essence of man himself.

Haiku - the poetic art of the Land of the Rising Sun

The careful attitude of the Japanese to their past, to the heritage of antiquity, as well as strict observance of the rules and norms of versification turned haiku into a true art form. In Japan, haiku is a separate type of skill - for example, like the art of calligraphy. It acquired its true capacity at the end of the 17th century. The famous Japanese poet Matsuo Basho managed to raise it to an unsurpassed height.

The person who is depicted in the poem is always against the backdrop of nature. Haiku is intended to convey and show phenomena, but not to name them directly. These short poems are sometimes called "pictures of nature" in the art of poetry. It is no coincidence that artistic canvases were also created for haiku.

The size

Many readers are wondering how to write haiku. Examples of these poems show that haiku is a short work that consists of only three lines. In this case, the first line should contain five syllables, the second - seven, the third - also five. For centuries, haiku has been the main form of poetry. Brevity, semantic capacity and obligatory appeal to nature are the main characteristics of this genre. In fact, there are many more haiku addition rules. It's hard to believe, but in Japan the art of compiling such miniatures has been taught for decades. And painting lessons were also added to these classes.

The Japanese also understand haiku as a work consisting of three phrases of 5, 7, 5 syllables. The difference in the perception of these poems by different peoples lies in the fact that in other languages ​​they are usually written in three lines. In Japanese, they are written in one line. And earlier they could be seen written from top to bottom.

Haiku Poems: Examples for Children

Quite often, schoolchildren receive homework assignments to learn or compose haiku. These short poems are easy to read and quick to remember. This is demonstrated by the following example of haiku (2nd grade is too early to learn Japanese poetry, but if necessary, students can refer to this three-verse):

The sun is setting
And cobwebs too
Melt in the dusk...

The author of this laconic poem is Basho. Despite the capacity of the three lines, the reader must use his imagination and partly take part in the creative work of the Japanese poet. The following haiku is also written by Basho. In it, the poet depicts the carefree life of a little bird:

In the meadows free
The lark is filled with song
No work or worries...

Kigo

Many readers are wondering how to write haiku in Russian. Examples of these verses show that one of the main features of this genre of poetry is the correlation of the internal state of a person with the time of year. This rule can also be used in composing your own haiku. In the rules of classical versification, the use of a special “seasonal” word, kigo, was obligatory. It is a word or phrase that indicates the time of year described in the poem.

For example, the word "snow" would indicate winter. The phrase "moon in a haze" may indicate the onset of spring. The mention of sakura (Japanese cherry) will also point to spring. The word kinge - "goldfish" - will indicate that the poet depicts summer in his poem. This custom of using the kigo came to the haiku genre from other forms. However, these words also help the poet choose concise words, give the meaning of the work even greater depth.

The following haiku example will tell about summer:

The sun is shining.
The birds were quiet at noon.
Summer has come.

And after reading the following Japanese three-verse, you can understand that the described season is spring:

Cherry blossoms.
Dali was shrouded in mist.
Dawn has come.

Two parts in a tercet

Another characteristic feature of haiku is the use of the "cutting word" or kireji. For this, Japanese poets used various words - for example, I, kana, keri. However, they are not translated into Russian, because they have a very vague meaning. In fact, they represent a kind of semantic mark that divides the three lines into two parts. When translating into other languages, a dash or an exclamation mark is usually used instead of kireji.

Departure from the generally accepted norm

There are always such artists or poets who seek to break the generally accepted, classical rules. The same goes for writing haiku. If the standard for writing these three lines suggests a 5-7-5 structure, the use of "cutting" and "seasonal" words, then at all times there were innovators who, in their work, sought to ignore these prescriptions. There is an opinion that haiku, in which there is no seasonal word, should be attributed to the group of senryu - humorous verses. However, such a categorization does not take into account the existence of flour - haiku, in which there is no indication of the season, and which simply does not need it to reveal its meaning.

haiku no season word

Consider an example of haiku that can be attributed to this group:

cat walking
Down the city street
The windows are open.

Here, an indication of what time of the year the animal left the house does not matter - the reader can observe the picture of the cat leaving the house, completing the complete picture in his imagination. Maybe something happened at home that the owners did not pay attention to the open window, and the cat, slipping through it, went for a long walk. Maybe the mistress of the house is anxiously waiting for her four-legged pet to return. In this example of haiku, it is not necessary to indicate the season to describe feelings.

Is there always a hidden meaning in Japanese verses?

Looking at various examples of haiku, one can see the simplicity of these three lines. Many of them have no hidden meaning. They describe ordinary natural phenomena perceived by the poet. The following example of haiku in Russian, authored by the famous Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, describes a picture of nature:

On a dead branch
Raven blackens.
Autumn evening.

This haiku differs from the Western poetic tradition. Many of them have no hidden meaning, they reflect the true principles of Zen Buddhism. In the West, it is customary to fill every thing with hidden symbols. The following example of nature haiku, also written by Basho, does not make this sense:

I'm walking up the path to the mountain.
O! How wonderful!
Violet!

General and particular in haiku

It is known that the cult of nature is characteristic of the Japanese people. In the Land of the Rising Sun, the surrounding world is treated in a very special way - for its inhabitants, nature is a separate spiritual world. In haiku, the motive of the universal connection of things is manifested. The specific things that are described in three lines are always connected with the general cycle, they become part of a series of endless changes. Even the four seasons of the year are divided by Japanese poets into shorter sub-seasons.

First drop
Fell from the sky on my hand.
Autumn has come.

James Hackett, who was one of the most influential Western writers of haiku, believed that in these three lines feelings are conveyed "as they are." Namely, this is characteristic of Basho's poetry, which shows the immediacy of the current moment. Hackett gives the following tips for writing your own haiku:

  • The source of the poem should be life itself. They can and should describe daily events that at first glance seem ordinary.
  • When composing haiku, one should contemplate nature in close proximity.
  • It is necessary to identify oneself with what is described in the three lines.
  • It is always better to think alone.
  • Better to use plain language.
  • It is advisable to mention the time of year.
  • Haiku should be simple, clear.

Hackett also said that anyone who wants to create beautiful haiku should remember Basho's words: "A haiku is a finger that points to the moon." If this finger is decorated with rings, then the attention of the audience will be riveted to these jewels, and not to the heavenly body. The finger does not need any decorations. In other words, various rhymes, metaphors, comparisons and other literary devices are superfluous in haiku.

Don't imitate me too much!
Look, what's the use of such a resemblance?
Two halves of a melon. For students

I want at least once
Go to the market on holidays
Buy tobacco

"Autumn has already arrived!"
The wind whispered in my ear
Creeping up to my pillow.

One hundred times more noble
Who does not say at the flash of lightning:
"This is our life!"

All the worries, all the sadness
Of my troubled heart
Give it to the flexible willow.

What freshness blows
From this melon in drops of dew,
With sticky wet earth!

In the garden where the irises opened,
Chat with an old friend,
What a reward for a traveler!

Cold mountain spring.
I did not have time to scoop up a handful of water,
How the teeth are already broken

Here's a connoisseur's quirk!
On a flower without fragrance
The moth dropped.

Come on, friends!
Let's go wandering through the first snow,
Until we fall off our feet.

Evening bindweed
I'm captured... Still
I am in oblivion.

Frost hid him
The wind makes his bed...
Abandoned child.

There is such a moon in the sky
Like a tree cut down at the root:
White fresh cut.

The yellow leaf floats.
Which coast, cicada,
Do you suddenly wake up?

How the river overflowed!
The heron wanders on short legs
Knee-deep in water.

Like a banana moaning in the wind,
How drops fall into a tub,
I hear all night long. In a thatched hut

Willow leaned over and sleeps.
And it seems to me, a nightingale on a branch ...
This is her soul.

Top-top is my horse.
I see myself in the picture -
In the expanse of summer meadows.

You hear suddenly "shorch-shorch".
Sadness stirs in my heart...
Bamboo on a frosty night.

Butterflies flying
Wakes up a quiet meadow
In the rays of the sun

How the autumn wind whistles!
Then only understand my poems,
When you spend the night in the field.

And I want to live in autumn
To this butterfly: drinks hastily
Dew from the chrysanthemum.

Flowers withered.
Seeds are falling, falling
Like tears...

gusty sheet
Hid in a bamboo grove
And gradually calmed down.

Take a close look!
Shepherd's purse flowers
You will see under the fence.

Oh, wake up, wake up!
Become my friend
Sleeping moth!

They fly to the ground
Going back to old roots...
Separation of flowers! In memory of a friend

Old pond.
The frog jumped into the water.
A surge in silence.

Autumn Moon Festival.
Around the pond and around again
All night long!

That's all I'm rich in!
Light as my life
Pumpkin gourd. Grain storage jug

First snow in the morning.
He barely covered
Narcissus leaves.

The water is so cold!
Seagull can't sleep
Ride on the wave.

The pitcher burst with a crash:
At night, the water in it froze.
I woke up suddenly.

Moon or morning snow...
Admiring the beautiful, I lived as I wanted.
This is how I end the year.

Clouds of cherry blossoms!
The ringing of the bells floated ... From Ueno
Or Asakusa?

In a flower cup
A bumblebee is napping. Don't touch him
Sparrow friend!

Stork nest in the wind.
And under it - beyond the storm -
Cherries are a calm color.

Long day to fly
Sings - and does not get drunk
Lark in spring.

Over the expanse of fields -
Not tied to the ground
The lark calls.

May rains pour down.
What's this? Has the rim burst on the barrel?
The sound of an obscure night ...

Pure spring!
Up ran down my leg
Little crab.

It's been a clear day.
But where do the drops come from?
A patch of clouds in the sky.

As if taken in hand
Lightning when in the dark
You lit a candle. In praise of the poet Rick

How fast the moon flies!
On fixed branches
Drops of rain hung.

important steps
Heron on fresh stubble.
Autumn in the village.

Dropped for a moment
Threshing rice peasant,
Looks at the moon.

In a glass of wine
Swallows, don't drop
Clay lump.

There used to be a castle here...
Let me be the first to tell about it
A spring flowing in an old well.

How thick the grass is in summer!
And only one-leaf
One single sheet.

Oh no ready
I can't find a comparison for you
Three day month!

hanging motionless
Dark cloud in the sky...
It can be seen that lightning is waiting.

Oh, how many of them are in the fields!
But everyone blooms in their own way -
This is the highest feat of a flower!

Wrapped his life
around the suspension bridge
This wild ivy.

Blanket for one.
And icy black
Winter night... Oh, sadness! Poet Rika mourns his wife

Spring is leaving.
The birds are crying. The eyes of fish
Full of tears.

The distant call of the cuckoo
Sounded right. After all, these days
The poets have moved.

A thin tongue of fire, -
The oil in the lamp has frozen.
Wake up... What sadness! in a foreign land

West East -
Everywhere the same trouble
The wind is still cold. To a friend who went to the West

Even a white flower on the fence
Near the house where the mistress was gone,
Cold covered me. Orphaned friend

Broke off a branch
Wind running through the pines?
How cool is the splash of water!

Here in drunkenness
To fall asleep on these river stones,
Overgrown with cloves...

Get up off the ground again
Fading in the mist, chrysanthemums,
Crushed by heavy rain.

Pray for happy days!
On a winter plum tree
Be like your heart.

Visiting cherry blossoms
I have been neither more nor less -
Twenty happy days.

Under the shade of cherry blossoms
I'm like an old drama hero,
At night lay down to sleep.

Garden and mountain in the distance
Trembling, moving, entering
In a summer open house.

Driver! lead the horse
Over there, across the field!
There is a cuckoo singing.

May rains
The waterfall was buried -
Filled with water.

summer herbs
Where the heroes have disappeared
Like a dream. On the old battlefield

Islands... Islands...
And crushed into hundreds of fragments
Summer day sea.

What a blessing!
Cool green rice field...
The murmur of water...

Silence around.
Penetrate into the heart of the rocks
Voices of cicadas.

Gate of the Tide.
Washes the heron up to the chest
Cool sea.

Drying small perches
On the branches of a willow... What a coolness!
Fishing huts on the shore.

Wooden pestle.
Was he ever a willow
Was it a camellia?

Celebration of the meeting of two stars.
Even the night before is so different
For a normal night! On the eve of Tashibam holiday

Raging sea space!
Far away, to the island of Sado,
The Milky Way creeps.

With me under the same roof
Two girls... Hagi branches in bloom
And a lonely month In hotel

What does ripe rice smell like?
I was walking through the field, and suddenly -
To the right is the Gulf of Ariso.

Tremble, oh hill!
Autumn wind in the field -
My lonely moan. In front of the grave mound of the early deceased poet Isse

Red-red sun
In the desert distance ... But it freezes
Ruthless autumn wind.

Pines... Nice name!
Leaning towards the pines in the wind
Bushes and autumn grasses. A place called Sosenki

Musashi Plain around.
None will touch the cloud
Your travel hat.

Wet, walking in the rain
But this traveler is also worthy of a song,
Not only hagi in bloom.

O merciless rock!
Under this glorious helmet
Now the cricket is ringing.

Whiter than white rocks
On the slopes of the stone mountain
This autumn whirlwind!

Farewell verses
On the fan I wanted to write -
It broke in his hands. Breaking up with a friend

Where are you, moon, now?
Like a sunken bell
Hidden at the bottom of the sea. In Tsuruga Bay, where the bell once sank

Butterfly never
He won't be... Shaking in vain
Worm in the autumn wind.

A house in seclusion.
Moon ... Chrysanthemums ... In addition to them
A piece of a small field.

Cold rain without end.
This is how a chilled monkey looks,
As if asking for a straw cloak.

Winter night in the garden.
With a thin thread - and a month in the sky,
And cicadas barely audible ringing.

Nuns story
About the former service at the court ...
Deep snow all around. In a mountain village

Children, who is faster?
We'll catch up with the balls
Ice cereal. I play with children in the mountains

Tell me what for
Oh raven, to the bustling city
Are you flying from here?

How tender are the young leaves
Even here in the weeds
At the forgotten house.

Camellia petals...
Maybe the nightingale dropped
Flower hat?

Ivy leaves...
For some reason their smoky purple
He talks about the past.

Mossy gravestone.
Under it - is it in reality or in a dream? -
A voice whispers prayers.

Everything is spinning dragonfly ...
Can't get caught
For stalks of flexible grass.

Do not think with contempt:
"What small seeds!"
It's red pepper.

First left the grass...
Then he left the trees...
Lark flight.

The bell is silent in the distance,
But the scent of evening flowers
Its echo floats.

The cobwebs tremble a little.
Thin strands of saiko grass
They tremble in the twilight.

dropping petals,
Suddenly spilled a handful of water
Camellia flower.

The stream is slightly visible.
Float through the thicket of bamboo
Camellia petals.

May rain is endless.
Mallows are reaching somewhere
Looking for the path of the sun.

Weak orange flavor.
Where?.. When?.. In what fields, cuckoo,
Did I hear your flying cry?

Falling down with a leaf...
No, look! Halfway
The firefly fluttered.

And who could say
Why do they have such a short life!
The silent sound of cicadas.

Fisherman's hut.
Messed up in a pile of shrimp
Lone cricket.

White hair fell.
Under my headboard
The cricket does not stop.

Ill go down goose
On the field on a cold night.
Sleep lonely on the way.

Even a wild boar
Will swirl, take away with it
This winter whirlwind of the field!

It's the end of autumn
But believe in the future
Green tangerine.

Portable hearth.
So, the heart of wanderings, and for you
There is no rest anywhere. At the road hotel

The cold came along the way.
At the bird's scarecrow, or something,
In debt to ask for sleeves?

Seaweed stalks.
The sand creaked on my teeth...
And I remembered that I was getting old.

Manzai came late
To a mountain village.
The plums are already blooming.

Why all of a sudden such laziness?
They just woke me up today...
Noisy spring rain.

sad me
Drink more sadness
Cuckoos distant call!

I clapped my hands.
And where the echo sounded
The summer moon is blazing.

A friend sent me a gift
Risu, and I invited him
Visit the moon itself. On a full moon night

deep antiquity
A breeze ... Garden near the temple
Covered with dead leaves.

So easy-easy
Came out - and in the cloud
The moon thought.

Quail scream.
It must be evening.
The eye of the hawk faded.

Together with the owner of the house
I listen silently to the evening bells.
Willow leaves are falling.

White fungus in the forest.
Some unfamiliar leaf
Sticking to his hat.

What sadness!
Suspended in a small cage
Captive cricket.

Night silence.
Just behind the picture on the wall
The cricket is ringing.

Glittering dewdrops.
But they have a taste of sadness,
Don't forget!

That's right, this cicada
Is it all out of foam? -
One shell remained.

Fallen leaves.
The whole world is one color.
Only the wind hums.

Rocks among cryptomeria!
How to sharpen their teeth
Winter cold wind!

Planted trees in the garden.
Quiet, quiet, to encourage them,
Whispering autumn rain.

So that a cold whirlwind
To drink the aroma, they opened again
Late autumn flowers.

Everything was covered in snow.
Lonely old woman
In the forest hut.

Ugly raven -
And he's beautiful on the first snow
On a winter morning!

Like soot sweeps away
Cryptomerium tops treplet
A rising storm.

Fish and birds
I don't envy anymore... I'll forget
All the sorrows of the year Under the new year

Nightingales sing everywhere.
There - behind the bamboo grove,
Here - in front of the river willow.

From branch to branch
Quietly running drops ...
Spring rain.

Through the hedge
How many times have they fluttered
Butterfly wings!

Closed her mouth tightly
Sea shell.
Unbearable heat!

Only the breeze dies -
Willow branch to branch
The butterfly will flutter.

The winter hearth is getting along.
How old the familiar stove-maker has aged!
Whitened strands of hair.

Year after year, the same
Monkey amuses the crowd
In a monkey mask.

Didn't take my hands off
Like a spring breeze
Settled in a green sprout. planting rice

Rain follows rain
And the heart is no longer disturbed
Sprouts in the rice fields.

Stayed and left
Bright moon... Remained
Table with four corners. In memory of the poet Tojun

First fungus!
Still, autumn dews,
He didn't count you.

perched a boy
On the saddle, and the horse is waiting.
Collect radish.

The duck crouched down on the ground.
Covered with a dress of wings
Your bare feet...

Sweep the soot.
For myself this time
The carpenter gets along well. Before New Year

O spring rain!
Streams run from the roof
Along wasp nests.

Under an open umbrella
I make my way through the branches.
Willows in the first fluff.

From the sky of their peaks
Only river willows
Still pouring rain.

Hillock next to the road.
To replace the extinguished rainbow -
Azaleas in the sunset light.

Lightning at night in darkness.
Lakes expanse of water
Sparks flared up suddenly.

Waves run across the lake.
Some regret the heat
Sunset clouds.

The ground is slipping from under your feet.
I grab onto a light ear ...
The moment of parting has come. Saying goodbye to friends

My whole life is on the way!
Like I'm digging up a little field
I wander back and forth.

transparent waterfall...
Fell into the light
Pine needle.

Hanging in the sun
Cloud ... Randomly on it -
Migratory birds.

Buckwheat did not ripen
But they treat the field in flowers
A guest in a mountain village.

End of autumn days.
Already raising his hands
Shell chestnut.

What do people eat there?
House stuck to the ground
Under the autumn willows.

Chrysanthemum scent...
In the temples of ancient Nara
Dark buddha statues.

Autumn mist
Broke and drives away
Friends conversation.

Oh this long way!
The autumn dusk is falling,
And not a soul around.

Why am I so strong
Did you smell old age this fall?
Clouds and birds.

Late autumn.
I'm alone thinking
"And how does my neighbor live?"

On the way, I fell ill.
And everything is running, circling my dream
Through the scorched fields. death song

* * *
Poems from travel diaries

Maybe my bones
The wind will whiten - It is in the heart
I breathed cold. Going on the road

You are sad, listening to the cry of the monkeys!
Do you know how a child cries
Abandoned in the autumn wind?

Moonless night. Darkness.
With millennial cryptomeria
Grabbed into an embrace whirlwind.

The ivy leaf is quivering.
In a small bamboo grove
The first storm rumbles.

You stand indestructible, pine tree!
And how many monks have lived here,
How many bindweeds have faded... In the garden of the old monastery

Drops dewdrops - current-current -
Source, as in previous years ...
Wash away the worldly dirt! The source sung by the Saigyo

Twilight over the sea.
Only the cries of wild ducks in the distance
Blurred white.

Spring morning.
Over every nameless hill
Transparent haze.

I am walking along the mountain path.
Suddenly it became easy for me.
Violets in dense grass.

From the heart of a peony
The bee crawls slowly...
Oh, with what reluctance! Leaving a hospitable home

young horse
Chewing merrily ears of corn.
Rest on the way.

To the capital - there, far away -
Only half of the sky remains...
Snow clouds. On the mountain pass

Winter day sun
My shadow is freezing
On the horse's back.

She is only nine days old.
But they know both fields and mountains:
Spring has come again.

Cobwebs in the sky.
I see the image of the Buddha again
At the foot of the empty. Where the statue of Buddha once stood

Let's hit the road! I'll show you
Like cherry blossoms in distant Yoshino,
My old hat.

As soon as I got well,
Exhausted, until the night ...
And suddenly - wisteria flowers!

Soaring larks above
I sat down in the sky to rest -
On the crest of the pass.

Cherries at the waterfall...
For those who love good wine,
I'll take down the branch as a gift. Waterfall "Dragon Gate"

Like spring rain
Runs under a canopy of branches...
The spring softly whispers. Stream near the hut where Saigyo lived

Gone spring
In the distant harbor of Waka
I finally caught up.

On Buddha's birthday
He was born into the world
Little deer.

I saw before
In the rays of dawn the face of a fisherman,
And then - a blooming poppy.

Where it flies
The cry of the dawn cuckoo,
What's there? - A remote island.

Matsuo Basho. Engraving by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi from the 101 Views of the Moon series. 1891 The Library of Congress

Genre haiku originated from another classical genre - five-line tank in 31 syllables, known since the 8th century. There was a caesura in the tanka, at this point it “broke” into two parts, resulting in a three-line 17 syllable and a couplet in 14 syllables - a kind of dialogue that was often composed by two authors. This original three-verse was called haiku, which literally means "initial stanzas". Then, when the ternary received an independent meaning, became a genre with its own complex laws, they began to call it haiku.

The Japanese genius finds itself in brevity. Three-verse haiku is the most concise genre of Japanese poetry: only 17 syllables of 5-7-5 mor mora- a unit of measure for the number (longitude) of a foot. Mora is the time required to pronounce a short syllable. in line. There are only three or four significant words in a 17-complex poem. In Japanese, haiku is written in one line from top to bottom. In European languages, haiku is written in three lines. Japanese poetry does not know rhymes; by the 9th century, the phonetics of the Japanese language had developed, including only 5 vowels (a, i, y, e, o) and 10 consonants (except for voiced ones). With such phonetic poverty, no interesting rhyme is possible. Formally, the poem is based on the count of syllables.

Until the 17th century, haiku writing was viewed as a game. Hai-ku became a serious genre with the appearance of the poet Matsuo Basho on the literary scene. In 1681, he wrote a famous poem about the crow and completely changed the world of haiku:

On a dead branch
Raven blackens.
Autumn evening. Translation by Konstantin Balmont.

Note that the Russian symbolist of the older generation Konstantin Balmont in this translation replaced the “dry” branch with a “dead” one, unnecessarily, according to the laws of Japanese versification, dramatizing this poem. In translation, it turns out that the rule of avoiding evaluative words, definitions in general, except for the most ordinary ones, is violated. "Haiku Words" ( haigo) should be distinguished by deliberate, precisely adjusted simplicity, difficult to achieve, but clearly felt insipidity. Nevertheless, this translation correctly conveys the atmosphere created by Basho in this haiku, which has become a classic, the melancholy of loneliness, universal sadness.

There is another translation of this poem:

Here the translator added the word "lonely", which is not in the Japanese text, but its inclusion is nevertheless justified, since "sad loneliness on an autumn evening" is the main theme of this haiku. Both translations are highly acclaimed by critics.

However, it is obvious that the poem is even simpler than it was presented by the translators. If you give it a literal translation and place it in one line, as the Japanese write haiku, then you get the following extremely brief statement:

枯れ枝にからすのとまりけるや秋の暮れ

On a dry branch / a raven sits / autumn twilight

As we can see, the word "black" is missing in the original, it is only implied. The image of a “frozen raven on a bare tree” is Chinese in origin. "Autumn Twilight" aki no kure) can be interpreted both as “late autumn” and as “autumn evening”. Monochrome is a quality highly valued in the art of haiku; the time of day and year is depicted, erasing all colors.

Haiku is least of all a description. It is necessary not to describe, the classics said, but to name things (literally “give names to things” - down the hole) in extremely simple words and as if calling them for the first time.

Raven on a winter branch. Engraving by Watanabe Seitei. Around 1900 ukiyo-e.org

Haiku are not miniatures, as they have long been called in Europe. The greatest haiku poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who died early from tuberculosis, Masaoka Shiki, wrote that haiku contains the whole world: the raging ocean, earthquakes, typhoons, the sky and stars - the whole earth with the highest peaks and the deepest sea depressions. The haiku space is immeasurable, infinite. In addition, haiku tends to be combined into cycles, into poetic diaries - and often life-long, so that brevity of haiku can turn into its opposite: into the longest works - collections of poems (albeit of a discrete, interrupted nature ).

But the passage of time, past and future X aiku does not depict, haiku is a brief moment of the present - and nothing more. Here is an example of Issa's haiku, perhaps the most beloved poet in Japan:

How the cherry blossoms!
She drove off the horse
And the proud prince.

Transience is an immanent property of life in the understanding of the Japanese; without it, life has no value and meaning. Transience is so beautiful and sad because its nature is impermanent, changeable.

An important place in haiku poetry is associated with the four seasons - autumn, winter, spring and summer. The sages said: "He who has seen the seasons has seen everything." That is, I saw birth, growing up, love, new birth and death. Therefore, in classical haiku, the necessary element is the “seasonal word” ( kigo), which connects the poem with the seasons. Sometimes these words are hard to recognize by foreigners, but the Japanese know them all. Detailed databases of kigo are now being searched on Japanese networks, some with thousands of words.

In the above haiku about the crow, the seasonal word is very simple - "autumn". The color of this poem is very dark, accentuated by the atmosphere of an autumn evening, literally “autumn twilight”, that is, black against the background of gathering twilight.

See how gracefully Basho introduces the obligatory sign of the season into the parting poem:

For a spike of barley
I grabbed, looking for support ...
How difficult is the moment of separation!

"Spikelet of barley" directly indicates the end of summer.

Or in a tragic poem by the poetess Chiyo-ni on the death of her little son:

O my dragonfly hunter!
Where in an unknown country
Are you running today?

"Dragonfly" is a seasonal word for summer.

Another "summer" poem by Basho:

Summer herbs!
Here they are, the fallen warriors
Dreams of fame...

Basho is called the poet of wanderings: he wandered around Japan a lot in search of true haiku, and, going on a journey, he did not care about food, lodging for the night, vagabonds, and the vicissitudes of the journey in the remote mountains. On the way he was accompanied by the fear of death. The sign of this fear was the image of "Bones Whitening in the Field" - that was the title of the first book of his poetic diary, written in the genre haibun("haiku-style prose"):

Maybe my bones
The wind will whiten ... He is in the heart
I breathed cold.

After Basho, the theme of "death on the way" became canonical. Here is his last poem, "The Death Song":

On the way I got sick
And everything is running, circling my dream
Through the scorched fields.

Imitating Basho, haiku poets always composed "the last stanzas" before they died.

"True" ( makoto no) the poems of Basho, Buson, Issa are close to our contemporaries. The historical distance seems to be removed in them due to the immutability of the haiku language, its formulaic nature, which has been preserved throughout the history of the genre from the 15th century to the present day.

The main thing in the worldview of a haikaist is a keen personal interest in the form of things, their essence, connections. Let's remember the words of Basho: "Learn from the pine, what is the pine, learn from the bamboo, what is the bamboo." Japanese poets cultivated a meditative contemplation of nature, peering into the objects surrounding a person in the world, into the endless cycle of things in nature, into its bodily, sensual features. The goal of the poet is to observe nature and intuitively perceive its connections with the human world; Haikaists rejected ugliness, non-objectivity, utilitarianism, abstraction.

Basho created not only haiku poetry and haibun prose, but also the image of a wandering poet - a noble man, outwardly ascetic, in a poor dress, far from everything worldly, but also aware of the sad involvement in everything that happens in the world, preaching conscious "simplification". The haiku poet is characterized by an obsession with wanderings, the Zen Buddhist ability to embody the great in the small, awareness of the frailty of the world, the fragility and variability of life, the loneliness of man in the universe, the astringent bitterness of being, the feeling of the inseparability of nature and man, hypersensitivity to all natural phenomena and the change of seasons. .

The ideal of such a person is poverty, simplicity, sincerity, a state of spiritual concentration necessary to comprehend things, but also lightness, transparency of verse, the ability to depict the eternal in the current.

At the end of these notes, we will cite two poems by Issa, a poet who tenderly treated everything small, fragile, defenseless:

Quietly, quietly crawl
Snail, on the slope of Fuji,
Up to the very heights!

Hiding under the bridge
Sleeping on a snowy winter night
Homeless child.


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