Heeding Haiku with HA — Kigo – November 18, 2014

Kigo is that little Japanese word used by haijin (haiku poets) to fix or identify  a season in their poem.  There are more than 500 seasonal words that can be used (have a look at our new glossary to find the link to 500 Essential kigo) .

Today I’m going to choose two kigo – one for our northern hemisphere and the other for the our southern hemisphere (that is spring and autumn):

chestnut – balloon

you may use one (or why not both) either in the singular or the plural form.

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Remember the haiku is:

1. Seventeen syllables, broken into 5/7/5 (more or less) – modern haiku often ignores the 5/7/5 rule so long as no more than 17 syllables are used and the second line is (usually) the longest line;
2. A season word (or kigo) – [THE FIVE HUNDRED ESSENTIAL JAPANESE SEASON WORDS];
3. A cutting word or punctuation that divides the haiku into a short segment and a longer segment (called kireji);
4. Interchangeable first line and third line;
5. Often, a deeper spiritual meaning;
6. A very brief moment in time, written in the “here and now”.

You have 1 week to complete the challenge …  once you’ve written your post please tag:  Heeding Haiku with HA and MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie, then put your info onto the Mr. Linky app.  If you ping us back, we’ll be able to read your post ASAP because we will be notified that you’ve written the post (not so with Mr. Linky).

Have a great week!  Ciao, Bastet

Photo Credits: Wikipedia – Giuseppe Arcimboldo