Haiku. The life and spirit of Japanese poetry

Abstract

This paper deals with a short poem, haiku, which sets the turning point in Japanese poetry as a whole, perhaps in the universal one as well. The essential points to be seen are “wa” (‘harmony’ with Nature and with the very essence of human being): harmony in opposition to the West, where contradiction excels; “kigo”, that is, the ‘seasonal space-moment’, which is consubstantial to all sort of Japanese poetry; and “tabibito” (lit. ‘pilgrim’), which means that the poet is not isolated within his poetic constellation, but, conversely, he openly faces extreme physical suffering from natural rigors (frosts, mountains, waterfalls…). The haiku poetry is audio-visual. Just with a look at a kanji (Chinese ideogram), the poetical image remains recorded in the innermost of our senses. Haiku voices the life and spirit of Japanese poetry.