Idanre Haiku Review

photo credit: pixabay.com sparrows fly from scarecrow to scarecrow . . . — Sazanami This is a balanced haiku that weaves two sets of distinct elements into unison: the flora being the birds and the fauna being the scarecrows representing the presence or preexistence of plants, almost always maize or rice; the second set being the captured moments of restlessness displayed by the spiral and nearly stringy movements of the sparrows on the one hand and the motionlessness of the scarecrows on the other hand. Scarecrows are objects of autumn and they manifest the depth of the season by their eventual poverty, weakness and decomposition. In substance, they are set up in the shape of human to scare birds away from a field where crops are growing. They are worn with human garments and caps or hats with their arms stretched into the air, as if ready to whip any intruder. Ironically, this verse provokes the reader to query if scarecrows really scare the birds. The answer i...

The journey of a lifetime: an introduction to Haiku Haiku, generally presented as a moment in the now, relies upon contextual layers of personal and collective human history. In Japan, haiku draws upon a vast array of kidai  (seasonal topics). By 1647-48, the list of kidai had grown to more than thirteen hundred entries by Kitamura Kigin, Matsuo Basho’s haikai master (republished as Expanded Mountain Well, 1667). Kigo (season words) are sub-topics of the list. As this evidences, seventeenth century poets already had a cultural repertoire of key words and phrases from Japanese and Chinese poetry, mythology, famous places, festivals, and events that added context to their own lived experience and ordinary references.  For the Japanese, kigo furnishes allegory—the universal metaphor. For example, blossom (cherry or plum) might allude to a young woman, and willow might suggest a feminine sensuality, autumn might allude to human decline, etc. The potential for layers of ...