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japan 🌸 sacramento

Farewell Summer Haiku

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Paper lanterns
Paper lanterns at night.
Photo by Nicholas Ng on Unsplash

As we bid farewell to Summer and move toward colder weather, we offer three haiku for you to enjoy–one from our Sister City’s famous poet and two from locals.

The first is from Masaoka Shiki, a famous poet from Matsuyama City, Sacramento’s Sister City. We celebrated him with a post in August, the month in which Haiku Day is celebrated in Japan.

The second is by Lena Fiore, a fan of JapanSacramento.com’s Facebook Page. Lena wrote, in a Facebook comment, that she had fun figuring out how to write haiku. Maybe you will too. We think you’ll relate to her haiku as much as we did, so please enjoy.

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Sacramento’s Haiku Connection

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Spring blossoms
Spring blossoms. Photo by David Brooke Martin on Unsplash.
Masaoka Shiki, Haiku Master, Poet, Author, Literary Critic
Masaoka Shiki, Haiku Master, Poet, Author, Literary Critic.

Photo credit: Portrait of Masaoka Shiki (正岡子規, 1867 – 1902); Source: Japanese book Soseki no Omoide (漱石の思ひ出); Public Domain in Japan and USA (Wikimedia Commons).

Haiku wasn’t always a standalone literary form. Masaoka Shiki (October 1867 – September 1902) shook things up and showed the world of his time just how lovely haiku can be. If it weren’t for him, one might wonder if haiku would have become as popular as it is today.

Haiku is a short poetry form–the world’s shortest!–originating in Japan. Traditional haiku structure consists of three lines and 17 syllables in total. The first line has five syllables, the second has seven, and the final line has five. Traditional haiku also mentions or evokes one of the seasons—Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall. Of course, like any art form, it has continued to evolve into numerous variations from the “rules,” if they could be called that.

When Masaoka appeared on the scene and championed haiku, the previous three haiku masters had long since passed, and haiku seemed to have diminished in the minds of literary scholars of his day. But Masaoka gave haiku new life. 

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