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It's snowing! (2009 edition)
It's snowing! (2009 edition)
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Issa: old man, haiku master |
How times flies – watching the snow coming down, I'm reminded of last year's first snowfall. It was November 18th, and I posted a poem on the Clog to commemorate the occasion.
And traditions, after all, are nice.
Last year's poem was a gloomy meditation on a snow storm by Robert Frost. This year, I thought I'd take a different tack: haiku.
Originally a kind of aristocratic parlor game, haiku was developed into a serious art form by Matsuo Basho, who lived in the 17th century. Basho concieved of haiku as a whole philosophy of poetry - and really a philosophy of aesthetics, life, the universe, and everything. He stipulated that a haiku should do no more nor less than convey one single moment with total honesty – a task which requires the author to kind of remove himself from the moment in order to see it.
He also stipulated that every haiku must take place within a specific season. For Basho, there was no such thing as a moment without the season it was taking place in.
Interestingly, the whole 5-7-5 thing was really part of haiku's origins as a game. Basho himself was happy to dispense with the syllable requirements.
A devotee of Zen Buddhism, Basho's haiku are known for conveying moments that carry a Zen-like detachment from time and self. So here's a couple of winter haiku:
Even that old horse
is something to see this
snow-covered morning
and
Winter solitude--
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.
Many of my own favorite haiku come from Kobayashi Issa, another great haiku master and student of Basho's poetry. Issa, unlike Basho, was a big softy - and many of his haiku are about children, people, insects, and his own lifestyle as a crusty old man.
Here are two winter haiku by Issa:
snowshoes
children show me how
to put them on
and
"First snowfall, snowfall!"
he says
without teeth
Isaiah, thanks for the great haiku by two of my favorites ... Don @ Issa's Untidy Hut
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