Choose your Haiku

The “haiku line” is inspired by poetic compositions that originated in Japan in the 17th century.

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The Haiku line

Such compositions are generally made up of three lines for a total of seventeen morae. As Roland Barthes writes, the haiku “encloses what you see, what you feel, within a minimal horizon of words.” Haiku are compositions of the soul, telling the emotions of the seasons, the fragility of humankind, and the magic of everyday life.

Masaoka Shiki

He was born on October 14, 1867, into a family of lower-ranking samurai, in the city of Matsuyama, on the northwestern coast of the island of Shikoku. Along with Bashō and Buson, he is considered one of the greatest Japanese poets.

Ryōkan (1758-1831)

A Buddhist monk of the Sōtō Zen school, he lived for thirty years in a small hermitage in the mountains, devoting long hours each day to meditation, wandering through villages, playing with children, and writing beautiful poems. He is rightly called “the poet of Zen,” a doctrine whose fundamental teachings can be summed up in the following words: meditation, inner freedom, and compassion. Today he is venerated as the “Buddha of Japan,” and some compare him to Saint Francis of Assisi.

Yosa Buson (1716-1784)

A Japanese poet and painter, he was born in the village of Kema, in the province of Settsu. With the same grace he conveys to the tip of his brush, he is able to sketch those “almost nothings” that lie on the threshold of immediate, elusive experience. By always remaining as close as possible to reality and nature, he consistently succeeds in transcending the everyday and the banal, thus capturing a sense of essential wholeness—close to beauty itself. Buson is considered, together with Bashō and Issa, one of the greatest masters of haiku that Japan has ever known.

Bashō (1644-1694)

The stage name of Matsuo Munefusa, he was one of the greatest Japanese poets.
The coexistence of elements of everyday life, often humble, and the signs of the poet’s emotions—immersed in nature and in dialogue with the ancients—in a blending of universal beauty and common objects, of the banal and the transient with the sublime and the eternal, is perhaps the highest expression of Bashō’s work.

Haiku 15, Buson

Il mare a primavera lungo tutta la giornata la sua danza ondeggiante!

Haiku 8, Buson

Ah! la fiamma che passa da una candela all’altra serata di primavera.

Haiku 37, Shiky

Ah! che freschezza la lampada che si spegne il mormorio dell’acqua.

Haiku 3, Buson

Sale fino al cielo il profumo dei fiori di pruno- alone lunare.

Haiku 76, Ryokan

A mezzogiorno appaiono un po’ ovunque i papaveri.

Haiku 59, Shiky

La peonia bianca una notte al chiaro di luna perse i suoi petali.

Haiku 91, Ryokan

Dove assopirmi questo stato d’ebbrezza- fiore di loto.

Haiku 95, Ryokan

Tutto attorno a noi il mondo non è altro che fiori di ciliegio.

Haiku 43, Shiky

Spiaggia sabbiosa perché accendere un fuoco? Luna d’estate.

Haiku 17, Buson

Cadendo nell’acqua i petali scompaiono pruno sulla riva.

Haiku 7, Basho

Svegliati, svegliati! e diventa amica mia farfalla che dormi.

Haiku 9, Basho

Cadendo hai riversato la sua acqua – fiore di camelia.

Haiku 16, Basho

Quante e quali cose mi ritornano alla mente- fiori di ciliegi!

Haiku 18, Basho

Petalo dopo petalo cadono le rose gialle – il rumore del torrente.

Haiku 23, Ryokan

In questo posto sotto il ciliegio in fiore dormire una notte intera.

Haiku 18, Shiky

Su ogni isola lampade accese, mare a primavera.