カモメの俳句 - In Pursuance of Haiku: Writing and Appreciation

[sea_gull]

Introduction

Recently I have begun to become more interested in micropoetry and thus I find more and more that haiku catch my attention. Do I understand the necessary grammar? No, not really. Do I have a solid cultural cache to draw upon while reading? Again, no. Still, I can’t help but to appreciate the poetic form. My current favorite haiku is the following Basho piece:

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木
の
も
と
に
汁
も
膾
も
桜
か
な

Hiragana：

Summary

きのもとにしるもなますもさくらかな

My translation is as follows:

Bowered by blossoms
our picnic is disrupted;
Picking out flowers!

A more professional, competent translation (by Hart Larrabee) is:

Beneath the tree
In the soups and salads
Cherry Blossoms everywhere!

Isn’t that nice?

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Writing Haiku

Since I now know a handful of kanji and my vocabulary is around the level of a 4 year old, I decided the time was ripe to let 'er rip and try and write my own. My first attempt gets the special hand-written treatment that I will be too lazy to give subsequent attempts.

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Autumn no. 1

To those who can’t read my poor handwriting:

人
知
れ
や
金
星
の
出
火
色
空

Hiragana:

Summary

ひとしれやきんせいのでひいろぞら (note: not sure if 空 rendaku’s here so I just went with the 青空 precedent.

My translation is as follows:

Though we may not see –
The sky, alit, will witness
The rise of Venus

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My mindset when writing this haiku was of how autumn can sneak up on us and, while we see warm colors, usher in a cold and premonitory winter. I hoped that by starting with 人知れや I would then be able to juxtapose the sheltered security of being among people with the illimitable cold vastness of the cosmos. At the same time, I wanted to use appropriate seasonal language for a autumnal haiku so the fiery sky and emergence of Venus are also present in the poem.

For those of you who read this far - what are your thoughts? Does my lack of Japanese grammar detract from the poem? Is it awkward?

Going forward, I will be posting more haiku here from time to time. Feel free to post your own as well (Japanese preferred).

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Bonus Haiku:

Summary

New Years no. 1

新
年
に
接
吻
を
他
人
思
わ
ず
し

I wrote this while contemplating the ball-drop in times square and thinking back to the famous picture of the WW2 sailor kissing in NYC. While this may not be literally what happens nowadays, the feeling is still around. I’ll let you come up with your own translations for this one (hopefully you are not plagued by my poor Japanese skills).

[Toshiroo]

these are really cool! (also thank you for including the hiragana)

[Kokinshu]

Hello there, welcome to Wanikani
A few things came to my mind when I was reading your autumn haiku, first of all don’t you think that the negative form is missing from 人知れや ? I would have expected ず or ぬ, instead of just 人知れ + the kireji や. 金星の出 is also a little bit short if you want to get as close as possible to the 17 moras, I was thinking maybe something like 金星は出ている would do the job… I also think that the English translation feels different, in the Japanese text I don’t read it like the sky is witnessing the rise of the planet.

Just a few thoughts, it’s still a cool poem

Your New Year haiku is also really cool, but I am confused about that final し ? Did you intended it as just the normal ending particle for putting emphasis on what comes before ? (edit : I was trying to write the haiku in an other way to illustrate how I was understanding it but I did some mistakes so I just deleted it)

Anyways, here is how I would translate your haiku ;

if you are the one kissing :

New Year’s Eve -
without thinking of others
I kiss my love

or

New Year’s Eve -
I don’t think about others,
I just kiss my love

if you are seeing other people kissing :

New Year’s Eve -
they don’t think about others,
the people who kiss

Bashô’s poem is also really nice indeed, it made me think about an other haiku that I’ve translated from him a long time ago :

様々さまざまの事こと思おもい出だす桜さくらかな

They make me remember
so many different things,
the cherry flowers…

[sea_gull]

Thank you for reading my Haiku so closely! I think you’re 100% correct on my first poem. ぬ would work better than や. I think I was just focused on including the kireji as some sort of poetic device while skipping over the more important content of the haiku itself. Also, I must have dropped something when editing to be missing a mora. Let’s call it poetic license .

As for the し in NYE poem: I was using it (likely incorrectly) as a way to demonstrate overflowing emotions / forcefulness so you could say it was indeed for emphasis.

Cherry blossoms are such strong symbols, I can see why they are valued so highly. 諸行無常.

[sea_gull]

Here’s another Haiku, this time by Buson. Reading this, one must wonder if he did not gain inspiration from Basho’s poem I included in the my first post.

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大
和
路
の
宮
も
わ
ら
屋
も
つ
ば
め
哉

Hiragana:

Summary

やまとじのみやもわらやもつばめかな

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My translation is as follows:

An old road flanked
by shrine-nests and straw roof-nests
overflows with swallows.

But it could also be translated very similarly to the cherry blossoms poem by Basho. For example:

On the ancient road
In the shrines and on the rooftops
Swallows everywhere!

[Hotaru_o7]

Hi! I also love haiku! It’s the main reason for me picking my japanese studies more seriously. My favourite poet is Kobayashi Issa, here’s one of his best in my opinion, also playing off the Basho haiku you mentioned on the original post:

外ならば梅がとび込福茶哉
soto naraba ume ga tobikomu fukucha kana
or:
going outside
plum blossoms dive in…
my lucky tea

I’m still at about N5 level, so I’m very much a begginer, however I have been writing haiku both in my native language and in english for a while now, so I figured I’d take the natural step and actually learn some japanese! I assume it’s going to take at least 3-5 years for me to be abble to write natural sounding and authentic haiku in japanese, and I’m down to take that path! Here’s my begginer’s attempt at it thoguh:

川辺には 僕と遊ぶや 飛ぶ蛍
kawabe ni wa boku to asobu ya tobu hotaru
or:
by the riverside –
will they play with me?
flying fireflies

Sorry I don’t know how to hide the romaji / translations, in fact, this is my first post in this forum! I just started using WaniKani yesterday.
I hope we can spark a lively discussion on haiku here!