Japanese Haiku Poems
Japanese Haiku poems are very different from haiku poems in English .You can express a lot more ideas with 17 English
syllables than with 17 Japanese syllables.
This difference isn't present only in haiku poems, this differance come from people who translate Western musicals to Japanese. A large part of the art of haiku poems is expressing an idea in the limited environment. Since the English
Haiku poems are allowed more degrees of freedom than their Japanese
counterpart, they're playing a different game.
In Japanese, one noun
and a connective phrase will easily take up five syllables; in English,
short sentences using common words often fits in five syllables.
leaf falls from a tree
and returns to it
it was a butterfly
Upon a naked branch
A raven came
Autumn dusk
We are as in autumn
on the branches
leaves
We stand alone
pierced by a ray of sun
and already it is dark
helmet lost in space
in graves
one hand clapping
it is a singsong dawn
but we think of night alone
already pierced by dark
the ground echoes
yet another rice rack
collapsing in rain
black sky
red noses
and snow
the year giving out
people give me nothing
this evening
