Haiku, Natural Japanese Poetry

The haiku is a type of typical Japanese poem, characterized for having a very peculiar structure, being formed only by three verses of five, seven and five syllables respectively, giving a total of 17 syllables. In the same way, the haiku is usually inspired by the nature, and the changes that it develops with the changing seasons.

古池や　蛙飛込む　水の音

furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto

This separates into on as:

fu-ru-i-ke ya (5)

ka-wa-zu to-bi-ko-mu (7)

mi-zu no o-to (5)

Translated

old pond . . .

a frog leaps in

water’s sound

Its origins can be traced to the eight century, when the Chinese characters arrived to Japan, and therefore, the island culture and literature started to grow and improve. One of the first and most important poets who wrote haiku was Matsuo Basho, who defined the basic characteristics that the poem has today.
Besides the poem itself, many Haijin (name with which haiku writers are known) usually make a draw to represent the ideas or messages implicit in the verses, this act is known as Haiga, and is very common in the Japanese day-to-day life.

Haiku is in fact a really simple but interesting poem, which can be redacted by any person who could be interested in spending a few minutes of his or her time, thinking and writing. Actually, in today's class we wrote two of these poems,

I'll show you mine right now...

Evening Sun

We will see the sky

Swaying in the evening Sun

While the clouds pass by

Cold Climb

Winds howl in dark rage

with cold dread we start to climb

No more fear, calm down