Shiki Masaoka, Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規
the haiku poet, was born in Matsuyama in 1867. He died on September 19,1902.
Shiki is well known in Japan for introducing a new style of haiku, a short poetic form, and for enhancing the arts.
The word Shiki can also mean "The four seasons 四季" in Japanese.
Source: World Kigo Database
Modern haiku began with the haiku revolution instigated by MASAOKA Shiki at the turn of the century. Taking artistic and literary ideals from the West, Shiki revived the art of haiku which had atrophied under the shackles of feudalism since the Edo period. He did this through "shasei" or haiku sketching.
Source:
After Basho,Buson & Issa
Yoko Sugawa (the president of "Fuyoh")
http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~shiki/sm/after.html
Masaoka Shiki: the Misunderstood Reformer, Critic and Poet
Carmen Sterba, 2011
A "Sketch from Life" [shasei] was One of Shiki's Many Techniques
According to Japanese poetry expert, Ueda Makoto, "Shiki mentored numerous amateur poets; therefore, he devised the sketch-of-life technique to avoid "decorative words, ornamental language, and self-conscious imaginings." In Modern Japanese Poets, Ueda shares that Shiki believed it was vital to write from experience and saw "at least two fatal flaws" to avoid: The falsification of fact and the tendency to be overly intellectual." Some other suggestions Shiki gave were
(1) to "pay more attention to lesser-known locales" rather than famous places,
(2) to walk and observe nature, but afterwards write at home,
(3) to focus on "material and theme in a way that will reveal [your] individuality,"
(4)to read other's haiku to be informed, and
(5) to know something of the history of tanka (originally called waka).
Ueda also suggests that Basho wrote about the "beauty of external nature" and Shiki wrote haiku based on "internal, psychological reality of what is truthful (makoto)."
Source: World Kigo Database
The Poetry of Shiki
spring breeze -
the castle shows
above the pines
rowing through
out of the mist
the wide sea
In the coolness
of the empty sixth-month sky...
the cuckoo's cry.
the tree cut,
dawn breaks early
at my little window
scatter layer
by layer, eight-layered
cherry blossoms!
at the full moon's
rising, the silver-plumed
reeds tremble
entangled with
the scattering cherry blossoms-
the wings of birds!
the moon is cool-
frogs' croaking
wells up
coolness-
a mountain stream splashes out
between houses
fanning out its tail
in the spring breeze,
see-a peacock!
I bite into a persimmon
and a bell resounds-
Horyuji
rice reaping-
no smoke rising from
the cremation ground today
old garden-she empties
a hot-water bottle
under the moon
again and again
I ask how high
the snow is
snow's falling!
I see it through a hole
in the shutter...
spring rain:
browsing under an umbrella
at the picture-book store
"Sick in Bed Ten Years"
lifting my head,
I look now and then-
the garden clover
how much longer
is my life?
a brief night...
wisteria plumes
sweep the earth, and soon
the rains will fall
purple unto
blackness:
grapes!
I thought I felt
a dewdrop on me
as I lay in bed
crimson plum blossoms
scattered over the loneliness
of the bed...
fallen petals of
the crimson plum I pluck
from the tatami
chestnut rice-
though a sick man,
still a glutton
surprise!
a moonflower fell-
midnight sound
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Source:
http://terebess.hu/english/haiku/shiki.html
