Thanks to Bob Hass, I'm
reading the haiku masters
of Japan -- Basho
Buson and Issa --
in one essential book: The
Essential Haiku,
published by Ecco,
with smart intro and useful
notes by Mr. Hass
Examples follow.
(Translators do not observe
strict syllabic count).
Here is Basho as
rendered by B. Watson in
fifteen syllables:
"It's not like anything
they compare it to --
the summer moon."
And now for Buson,
trans. by Yuki Sawa and
Edith M. Shiffert:
"I go,
you stay;
two autumns."
Issa, the last of
the three, wrote the following
(trans. Robert Huey):
"Children imitating comornats
are even more wonderful
than cormorants."
Perhaps most famous
Japanese haiku has frog
poised to leap in pond.
Here it is with five
syllables in line one then
seven and then five:
"Into the old pond
the young frog jumps and there is
the sound of water."
Throw away the rules
And you get something better,
At least I think so:
"Pond.
Frog.
Splash." -- DL
