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autumn deepens ...
a mosquitoe floats
in my bathtub
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This haiku has two kigo.
One is strong, autumn.
One is weak, mosquito for all summer, since we encounter this animal in other seasons too.
In that case the two kigo do not collide.
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Gabi,
I am always fearful of using two kigo in a haiku because I don't know how. It helps a little that you have characterized these as 'strong' and 'weak', and that 'mosquito' is the weak kigo because one can find these insects in other seasons. ???
Could you speak to this a little more?
L.
Answer
... this was part of the teaching of Hasekawa Kai sensei the other day on NHK. Other sensei often say the same.
One kigo is of course best, but since the situation sometimes calls for more than one, like my friend in the bathtub this morning, there is no harm done to be true to the situation.
If you follow my own link, there is a bit from Bill Higginson about the use of two kigo, along the same lines. He uses the word DOMINANT for the strong one.
To be on the safe side,
only use one kigo in your own haiku and
enjoy the ones with two by the master poets ...
is another piece of advise I often hear in Japan.
Gabi
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Mosquitoes are best in summer in Japan. Now, as autumn deepens, even they get weaker and once in a while I find one in my bathtub (this never happens in summer).
So they show me the cycle of life during the seasons and I use two kigo here, one for my moment in the bathtub and one for the flow of the seasons in the life of the animal.
They remind me that for all of us the end comes when the circle of our life energy is completed.
. . . The use of KIGO in Japanese haiku
. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008
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The point is not whether the mosquito is year-round but what it signifies.
ReplyDeleteJapan is a long country so it has the North-South variety we do. So how did they decide on what goes in which season? Edo or Tokyo as we call it.
But Japanese haijin everywhere adhere to the "standard".
Japanese seasons are not the same. Winter comes early in the Haiku World (both in the wonderful book by Bill and our earthly one) -
November 7.
Let's look at it this way. How many poems do we see with "June snowstorm"? Yet it is true in the Southern hemisphere.
I've been doing this for about a decade and I can't say I've but scratched the surface of kigo.
Before arguing about it, I, for one, plan to wait until I feel I have at least a tentative handle on
it first. Meanwhile, I try to follow in the footsteps of the haiku masters.
Bless,
hortensia
I hope it's doing the dead mosquito's float.
ReplyDeleteVery good. B.K.
well, I believe that everything has a purpose, although, sometimes
ReplyDeleteI wonder? Nice example Gabi.
G.
I'd like to say 'poor mosquito', but it wouldn't feel honest. Nice one, Gabi!
ReplyDeleteS.C.
nice haiku!
ReplyDeletesince we got an insect screen door/windows `our` mosquitos live in the garden, we (my family and i) in the house ... (i hate them ... and i suppose that they know ... )
a friend from Germany
Great Haiku. I am so pleased that we arn't alone being pestered by the dreaded mozzie.
ReplyDeleteB.
I really got a kick out of this one!
ReplyDeleteL.C.
Love the way 'deepens' also works with such a tiny thing as a mosquito in a bathtub...deep is relative!
ReplyDeleteIt might've drowned...& certainly the water level was way over its head. My idea of 'deep' in relation to bathwater changes when I see it in relation to a mosquito.
L.A.
Sensitive work as usual.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the link about kigo...so much to learn.
D.
... well, if it was my bathtub, that mosquito might not be floating there quite by accident ...if it landed on me, for instance...
ReplyDeleteSpring is here in Melbourne and the mosquitoes have arrived. [It's only the pregnant females that bite... sad thought]
L.