RE: Today in Japan, Nov 28 ~ Death of the Haiku Poet
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That's a great question. And.... I don't think I know clearly. Let me think... Hmm... I remember 20 years ago when I came to Japan. One of my gaijin friends decided he wanted to make a Twitter account just to tweet his own haiku. I had never really thought much about haiku, but I joined in the fun. I liked Japanese classical literature, but poetry wasn't really my thing. But I joined with my friend and started tweeting out haiku as well.
From writing my own silly ones to tweet out, I slowly started to read more about haiku. From there I got sucked into reading haiku from the old masters. I started reading them directly in Japanese. I met some Japanese haiku teachers here. Read more, learned more. Bought a saijiki. Bought way too many haiku books. Found the haiku section at the library. And it just kind of spiraled from there.
Hmm... I think that might be it. I haven't thought of that in a long time, so my memory might not be accurate.
Thank your for sharing your story! Wow. Your haiku journey sounds very interesting. I like to hear people’s “道” story because there is a deep story in it.
Do you have Saijiki? Cool. Japanese students have a chance to learn haiku at school and most of students enjoy learning it I guess. Unfortunately, we stopped learning after finishing school life as you know but people still enjoy haiku through their daily lives. I automatically count 5.7.5 sometimes hahaha! I think it’s people’s “Aruaru”behavior in Japan. I like salaryman senryu as well.
I think to some degree Japanese language naturally flows in groups of 5 and 7, that's one of the reasons this form of poetry developed. Just like English naturally flows into weak-strong patterns of 5 (iambic pentameter, like in Shakespeare verse). It's interesting how every language has their own style of poetry.
Senryu can be fun. I enjoy reading them in the paper when I get a newspaper. They sometimes remind me of dad jokes (oyaji gag) because they can be silly but funny.