As I’m sure many of you know, haiku (俳句) are short Japanese poems made of of 17 syllables usually in 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. The only Japanese haiku I can remember is:
古池や (furu ike ya)
蛙飛びこむ (kawazu tobikomu)
水の音 (mizu no oto)
An old pond
a frog jumps in
splash!
There are many other English versions of this famous haiku by Matsuo Bashō (松尾芭蕉) here. It’s amazing the number of different ways such a seemingly simple poem can be translated.
Haiku are not only written in Japanese. Non-Japanese haiku don’t always have exactly 17 syllables, but they usually a similar structure to the Japanese ones. Here are a few examples I came across recently in Scots:
Reid cluds lemin
at keek-o-day – refleckit
in the cray glaur
Red clouds glowing
at sunrise – reflected
in the pigsty mud
Hauf-road up the glen
a daurk wee lochan –
a cran tentie
Halfway up the glen
a dark little loch –
a heron watchful
Birlin doon
the rowth o gean blume
taigles a bummer
Swirling down
the plenteous cherry blossom
delays a bee
Do you know of any haiku in other languages? Or have you written any yourself?