Talk:Kigo

Early questions re translation

Even for something so short, I have pretty of questions and disagreements about this stub, so I will probably be doing some editing of the page in the near future. My problems with the page include:

1) Senryu did NOT derive from seasonless (muki) or miscellaneous (zō) haiku. The very short answer is that haiku and senryu both derive from haikai-no-renga, not senryu from haiku.

2) A collection of kigo (season words) is a kiyose. A collection of kigo along with commentary on the kigo and example haiku is a saijiki.

3) Kigo translates as "season word", but it can be either a word (e.g. 'snowmelt' is a Spring kigo), or a phrase (e.g. 'cranberry raking' is an Autumn kigo).

4) In my opinion, "a proper haiku must use a kigo" is not a neutral POV (my problem is the "must"). I will concede that it is the majority opinion in Japan and maybe even among English-language haiku poets. I'd probably rephrase that as either "a traditional Japanese haiku should include a kigo" or "a classic Japanese haiku should include a kigo". Although English haiku are more likely to use seasonless topics (e.g. pigeon) or even be kigo-less, even modern japanese haiku can be use seasonless topics or be kigo-less (see Makoto Ueda's Modern Japanese Haiku: An Anthology, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0-8020-2147-6 hardback ISBN 0-8020-6245-8 paperback) and especially many of the free-verse haiku of Taneda Santōka. Refering to the work of Japanese scholars, William Higgonson in his The Haiku Seasons ( Kodansha International © 1996 ISBN 4-7700-1629-8) said that Shiki wrote a few hundred haiku that are classified as zō (miscellaneous), and even Bashō wrote around ten as zō.

5) The link to a missing Wikipedia "List of kigo" webpage should probably be removed because I will be adding links to a number of good lists of kigo that already exist on the internet. There should, however, be a small list of example kigo included with this article.

gK 13:35, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC) revised 11:10, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

First of all, I translated this article from Japanese Wikipedia and its shortcomings is, not entirely my fault.

1)This is from Japanese Wikipedia and I do believe senryu is preceded by haiku. Haiku was originally from the Hokku of Renga and both had a kigo. Senryu, however was used a bit later by when a man named Karai Senryu from whom the word senryu was taken became famous for releasing a poem collection in 1811. Before that, it was called Kyoku, lit. crazy verse and the first use of the word kyoku is in 1349 as the word for a poem written without a rule.

2)This is a straight translation and I can neither confirm nor deny it.

3)I believe you are referring to Momijigari lit. red leaves gathering, and it happens to be a single word in Japanese language, so the problem is a translational one. However, I do believe 'a phrase or a word' is more reasonable as it does not alienate both examples.

4)The difference between a haiku and a senryu is the inclusion of a kigo and a senryu started by not including a kigo in the first place. It is true that the word haiku is used as a collective term for a poem with 5-7-5, but the original definition of haiku is that it has a kigo and those without kigo are a varient of this rule. It's like this.

• Haiku
  • Zou, Muki Haiku (see also Senryu)

Their is also a difference between a English haiku and a Japanese haiku. Even without a kigo, haiku are distinct from senryu in a sense that its topics are often seasonal and does not overlap with senryu's topics which tend to be about social issues. However, most English haiku merely burrowed the format but did not follow haiku's rule of a use of a kigo. The definition of haiku is simply different. Free verse haiku were born after rules of haiku solidified and using an exception to define the rule is not a wise thing to do.

5)Again, this is a straight translation and I intended to do a research on my own and left it as a blank link. The Japanese wiki article does have a list, but it is quite limited and I did not think that it merited a translation.Revth 13:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Greetings. There is much debate as to what is haiku, most of which is due to the divergent Western style from the Japanese style and the confusion of which style is being defined. Except for a few exceptions (muki), JAPANESE haiku have kigo. The Japanese culture has a much greater affinity and emphasis on the seasons than the West does. When the West adopted haiku, their interpretation of Japanese translated haiku was that they were about nature in general instead of about seasons in specific. Being that many Japanese kigo are too subtle by Western standards, Western readings of JAPANESE haiku usually missed the seasonal association. So WESTERN haiku are free form in that they don't require kigo and although the WESTERN haiku were once required to be about nature instead (which often had kigo incidentally) they don't anymore and now the focus is placed on the topics being chaste. However, if you intend to use a definition that WESTERN haiku require a kigo then may I suggest labeling the haiku a style of haiku such as neo-classical haiku. I wouldn't recommend the terms classical or traditional which might also suggest the 5-7-5 form. Although Western haiku originally had a syllabic form of 5-7-5 most are now written in free verse.

The article speaks that kigo are culture/region specific and uses pumpkins for an example but than goes to describe Japanese seasons in detail. I don't sense a clear distinction between Japanese and other region's kigo.

In the West the 'harvest' moon or 'autumn' moon is an autumn kigo but not the moon in general, while depending on adjectives and phrasing it is actually a kigo used in all four seasons by the Japanese.

Although the article is very informative and clear for the most part, I would like to see it clarify when it is speaking of Japanese haiku/kigo or some other region's.

Michael Baribeau May 6, 2005 .

Responses

Revth: I appreciate your efforts in translating the Japanese article. It gives me a good start to work with.

From the resources that I have, both haiku and senryu came from haikai no renga, or the more humerous, playful version of renga. The precedents for haiku are the hokku or opening verse of the renga, and the precendents for the senryu were the often more human interior verses of the renga. What became senryu actually started during Basho's lifetime as a parlor game involving maekutsuke or capping verses. It wasn't until the 1800's when this game became more popular and Karai Senryu was the most popular editor/selector (marker or tenja) of the winning verses, that they were called senryu.

I don't have kyoku in any of my references, but there I do have 'kyōka', which were the humerous counterpart to waka, and have been around since the time of the Manyoshu. 'Hyakushu Kyōka' (Comic Verses on a Hundred Kinds of Liquor) was complied in the fourteenth century.

There have been haiku with seasonless topic words since Basho (although very, very few), and kigo can easily be found in senryu (Ueda's Light 'Verse From the Floating World' has an entire chapter of seasonal senryu). What used to be a more reliable marker is that haiku were composed almost exclusively by aristocrats and monks, and senryu were composed by tradesmen and merchants. The best divider today between the two is probably overall tone and subject matter. If it humorous or mostly about humans and especially human nature, it is probably a senryu. If it is mostly about the seasons or has a subdued tone, then it is probably a haiku.

Just being about humans or social issues doesn't preclude a poem from being haiku. I have been told that roughly 40% of the topics in one of the major Japanese saijiki involved humans, including all of the different holidays, like the Bon Festival, to topics like sun-bathing, New Year's resolutions, mushroom gathering, beach-coming, etc. gK 15:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I like haiku but I don`t know much about the history. However, I would think the Tanabata and Bon festival paragraph belongs in summer rather than autumn? Andycjp 14/4/2005

To Do List Answers

1. . A saijiki is a reference book. Some of them are small enough that you could take them with you on a ginko (haiku walk). Others are the size of a large dictionary.
2. .For examples, the comments under "Common kigo" are sort of an abbreviated version of what might be found in a saijiki, with the only thing missing being the example haiku.
3. .Images of particular haiku poets, such Matsuo Basho would be appropriate for their own articles, but irrelavant for the Kigo article. It would be nice to find a picture of full tree in bloom, like the "D.C. Tidal Basin showing cherry trees in flower" photo in the Cherry article (which desperately needs to have the photo spacing fixed so that it doesn't have overlapping photos when looked at at 800x600 screen resolution). A nice photo of Autumn leaves might be a welcome addition, as well as a photo of the full moon. I'm not sure about the Nashi Pear photo with the bite out of one of them.

Thanks:

1. Saijiki section covers all this. I removed from todo list.
2. Some example haiku or renga is what I had in mind.
3. Yoy're right about the poet images. I have replaced the Nashi photo, which I have replaced with the cicada. Would it be ok to use the D.C. tidal basin cherry tree and just change the caption? Filiocht 12:03, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

Nashi Pear -> Fruit Edit

Filiocht: The Japanese have a number of defaults, such as Blossoms=Cherry Blossoms, and Moon=Autumn Moon. "Fruit" however, does not have a default, but has to be specified as to the type of fruit, which could be a summer fruit (such as cherries, raspberries, watermelon, etc.) or it could be an autumn fruit like the nashi pear or the other fruits that I mentioned after the nashi pear. Basically what I'm saying is that your fruit edit doesn't work under the category of "Common kigo" because "fruit" by itself can't be a kigo.

• Sorry. Is my revision better? Filiocht 12:37, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

• • To be honest, although the various winter fruit are used as kigo, they are not really that common. Originally I had just the Nashi Pear listed because I wanted to point to an already existing Wikipedia article that included some of the sorts of information that a saijiki might have on Nashi Pears. I later added the other fruit to fill out that entry, but I was mostly hoping that readers would follow the link to Nashi pears. In other words, your current revision is much better than the previous fruit one, but I prefer the original. On the other hand, because they aren't that common as kigo, I had been debating about removing that entry completely.

Examples

The one thing that I think the Kigo article is currently missing are a short "Kigo and haiku" and short "Kigo and renga" section. The haiku section could mention the famous "frog" haiku of Matsuo Basho which is already translated in the haiku article, and point out that frogs are a spring kigo. A whole renga, even a short 36 stanza kasen renga would be way too long for the kigo article or even the renga article, but maybe a single stanza would be appropriate in the renga section. 12:19, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good. Filiocht 12:37, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

I had a different idea for the "kigo and haiku" section, but I probably wouldn't get to it until sometime this weekend. Besides, that is one of the uncredited translations in the Wikipedia that has been bugging me. Unfortunately, the only public domain translation I've found (by Lafcadio Hearn) has "frogs jump in" -- ACK! gK 13:15, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

................................

Your LINKS

You could link your kigo examples to the ones in the Kigo Database, there is more kigo-related information than in the links you provide just now. Most of them are already here. Nashi is not a very common Japanese kigo. Reduce the samples to two or three of each season would be enough, I suggest for this introductory essay.

Check the seasonwords with explanations here http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/

I also wrote an intro to the kigo database now here with some examples http://www.worldhaikureview.org/4-1/whcjapan-p2.htm

Gabi

Must have a kigo or not

It is an interesting topic, and necessary but the first paragraph seems to be confused for me a bit.

For classic pre-Meiji era haiku (before 1868), almost all haiku had a kigo. For example, Japanese experts have classified only about 10 of Matsuo Bashō's (1644-1694) haiku in the miscellaneous (zō) category (out of about one thousand haiku). Note, however, that most of the pre-Meiji poets such as Bashō were primarily haikai no renga poets (that is, they composed linked verse with other poets), so they wrote plenty of miscellaneous and love stanzas for the interior lines of a renga. Usually about half the stanzas in a renga do not reference a season. A little later Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) (who wrote mostly haiku and not renga) wrote 109 haiku without season words (out of a total of roughly 20,000 haiku).

There might be a confusion; as far as I know

• Haiku today is a developed form of hokku, the first line (or stanza) of a series of "haikai no renga".
• And it must be seasonal - though Basho claimed sometimes it could be non-seasonal.
• It is true, not all stanzas of haikai no renga should have a kigo, but it is a different topic if hokku, the first line should have a kigo.

And I think the quotation the above make a confusion on those points. --Aphaea* 02:18, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

re:Must be seasonal: Unless you are going to say that, for example, much of what Taneda Santoka wrote was only zappai and not haiku (which is the way that many people feel), then this is not absolutely true. BlankVerse ∅ 02:42, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry you seem to miss my point. Modern Haiku is not my topic. I meant the first stanza of Renku (Hokku) from which haiku would develop and other 7-5-7 stanzas were functioning differently, so usually we don't think the latter under the name of haiku and never hokku. And the argument in the middle Edo period and the modern dispute of Mukigo haiku (haiku without kigo) are irrelevant to each other, as far as I know. Even Basho made some hokku without kigo and he stated they were legitimate hokkus but those works are different from parts of renga which hasn't been estimated as an individual work. --Aphaea* 22:05, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

........................................................

From Gabi

Kigo are the rule of Japanese haiku, not the exception. This should be made clear in a basic essay about kigo, I suggest.

WCH World Kigo Database

http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/

WHC World Kigo Discussion Forum

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCworldkigo/

---

Well I meant I thought the sentence the below was a digression: those internal stanzas have no direct relation to haiku. It should be written in (or moved to) renga.

"Note, however, that most of the pre-Meiji poets such as Bashō were primarily haikai no renga poets (that is, they composed linked verse with other poets), so they wrote plenty of miscellaneous and love stanzas for the interior lines of a renga.

But I think we have to refer attempt haiku without kigo in Taisho era, too.

--Aphaea* 10:53, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Saijiki

Saijiki is a term with such Japanese-cultral/haiku-specific overtones that it seems a little odd to see examples such as "Dominion Day" and "siesta" listed. Seeing how a saijiki is essentially a collection of kigo anyway, it seems a little redundant to have a collection of kigo under Saijiki, especially when more follow immediately in the next section. It seems like the examples should be merged and categorized in a way similar to the article called 季語一覧 in the Japanese wikipedia. That said, it might be interesting to see what new "season words" have arisen in other cultures and languages with the spread of haiku. CES 14:21, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I felt it strange "Dominion Day" is including this section. So I would like to clarify if this section treats saijiki in Japanese or saijiki in (English or other language) world. For the former I will be able to help a bit.

Siesta seems perhaps changed my addition "nap" and a brief sleeping in daytime, hirune is a legitimate kigo in Japanese tradition.

As for "List of Kigo" I doubt its feasibility. But I don't oppose if someone will care for it.

As for "new season words" we can refer "Nanpo-kigo" (Kigo in southern countries, that is, Osceania or Southeast Asia) or "Tairiku-kigo" (Continental Kigo, specially, Korea, China or Manchuria). Those attempts were made during the colonization period of Japan (until 1945), but I guess people would make similar atetmpt for localisation when they make haiku in a different country (and thus different nature and seasons) from Japan, still now. --Aphaea* 22:12, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Although Saijiki is a very haiku-specific term, there is now one very good introductory saijiki in Higginson's "Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac". The book's title calls it a poetry almanac, but the introduction is "Introduction to the International Haikai Saijiki". Although probably not as comprehensive as many Japanese saijiki that he used as his model, it is 407 pages, covering 680 seasonal and nonseasonal topics. It's not the thousands of topics that might be in a comprehensive Japanese saijiki, but it is a very good introduction.

There is also a new book that I haven't seen yet that is specific to England: English Seasonal Images: An Almanac of Haiku Season Words Pertinent to England by David Cobb (see [1]). There is even a recent internet development, the WHC World Kigo Database (see [2]).

My personal opinion is that there has been a problem with English-language haiku in that the haiku poets haven't paid as much attention to kigo as they probably should have been. Without an English-language saijiki, however, they had an excuse. Since Higginson's book was published in 1996, the more conscientious English-language haiku poet should be much more aware of the importance of kigo in haiku. One of my hopes in working on this article in the Wikipedia is that the casual haiku poet who might more familiar with spam haiku than Issa's haiku, I can influence them to also be more mindful about using kigo in their haiku.

As for the multiple lists of kigo: For the list under the Saijiki section, I could have just listed the different sections that each season is divided into, but I had thought that it would be more informative to give some examples of the sort of kigo fit in to each section (using examples of both Japanese and International kigo). The next section is for typical Japanese kigo. I could have used the section divisions as well as season divisions there, but I wouldn't have been able to show all the different sections. If you can think of a better way to get these points across, I would like to hear them. I haven't been that happy with the way that I ended up organizing some of the information in this article, but I also couldn't think of any other way to get the information across without making the article much larger than it is.

As for a List of Kigo, the Japanese Wikipedia has one. I have thought about creating a separate article titled "List of Kigo" following something like the formatting that I did for the Japanse kigo, but I want to try to turn this article into a Featured Article first. BlankVerse ∅ 07:04, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

(A parenthetical note: this page has been improved a lot recently- nice work!- but the bolding looks a bit maniacal. Like reading William Blake. ;) Mark¹ 08:13, 5 May 2005 (UTC))

...........

Saijiki on various topics, for example

Saijiki for Buddhist Events

http://worldkigo2005.blogspot.com/2005/01/saijiki-of-buddhist-events.html ...

Chapter SAIJIKI here lists a lot more topical ones

http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/2006/12/seasons-and-categories.html

Gabi.

Kigo - go or no go

I was a student of the late Fujita Akegarasu (1934 - 2004). Akegarasu sensei believed kigo is essential to the art of haiku. Kigo to the Japanese writer of haiku is part of the foundation of the poem. From my (non-Japanese studying Japanese haiku) view, what this means is a melding of feeling using the kigo as an anchor. I am not sure if "anchor" is the right word, perhaps, "catalyst" is better, in that, kigo, does not itself change, but, rather acts to help the reader feel the depth of the verse.

That is, the "heart" of the haiku. As has been mentioned earlier in previous discussions on haiku being from the beginning of a "renga" sequence, then, more stand-alone as Shiki sensei believed, it became haiku from the hokku. The hokku gives a strong hint as to what haiku should be. Hokku was the "greeting" to get the linked verse started. In this, hokku set the framework, season and setting for the group to continue. These aspects were retained in what became haiku. In fact, if you take the hokku by itself, you essentially have haiku.

This is still very valid in haiku of Japan today. If you want to confirm that assessment, just look at any collection of haiku from the proliferation of haiku circles (haiku writer groups) in Japan today. I would like to see the rest of the world adhere as closely as possible to this Japanese spirit when writing poems that represent the haiku art.

Retain both kigo and kireji in spirit and practice as essential components of any haiku. The techniques I currently feel sound are: developing a world saijiki; and using equivalent punctuation for the Japanese kireji. Also, there are many more reusable components such as kakekotoba (word play) that may cross the translation bridge between English and Japanese.

As with any literary congress between two diverse cultures... something will inevitably be lost in translation, but, the essential spirit of the haiku art supported by "ARTifacts" such as kigo and kireji (to mention just two) will limit that loss to a minimum, I do so hope.

~chibi (haigou for Dennis M. Holmes)

References

A question: I refered some saijiki I have and they are written in Japanese. Should I list them also in the References section or leave those non-English books? --Aphaea* 09:00, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that since you used the Japanese saijiki as references, then you should include them in the Reference section of the article. Most of your additions I have also found mentioned in Higginson's "Haiku World", but not all of them. BTW: Higginson's book is the ONLY international saijiki ever published, and until a recent book on season words in the United Kingdom, the only English-language saijiki ever published (as far as I know). Kigo are mentioned in most English-language books on haiku, but it is rarely more than a chapter's worth. BlankVerse ∅ 09:47, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Can you add an English-language translation for the title of the Japanese saijiki? BlankVerse ∅ 11:04, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I would liked to, but was not sure how I could avoid misunderstanding there was its translation. The Title meaning "Introductory Saijiki", editor is "Ono Rinka" (O with macron). --Aphaea* 12:49, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Calendar

We should link to Japanese calendar somewhere — maybe instead of Chinese calendar?

Strongly recommended. Without it, it is hard to understand saijiki section. And some of Japanese calendar content, like 24sekki should be expanded or just giving a clear link to Chinese calendar#Jieqi. --Aphaea* 00:03, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Uguisu

someone removed uguisu from Spring kigo section. I strongly oppose it. Uguisu, sorry I don't know how it is called in Eglish, this little bird is the most important bird kigo in the spring in my opinion. It appears alread in Kokinwakashu or Manyoshu. --Aphaea* 07:17, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I'll plead guity to removing the uguisu entry. Without a translation and some sort of explanation of why the kigo is important, it wasn't very useful (see hototogisu as an example). Unfortunately, I couldn't find the word in any of my haiku references. Only today did I find some info in a couple of my waka references. I found two different translations--song thrush and warbler. Here is a proposed entry from what I was able to gather:

uguisu (鶯, Japanese Bush-Warbler [sometimes translated as Japanese nightingale ], Cettia diphone) - early spring - used as an example of sweet sounds. Mentioned in the preface to the Kokinshū. It is often associated with spring blossoms and new growth in early Japanese waka and regarded as a harbinger of spring.

For anyone interested, here's two pictures that I found male, female. The drawings are from Siebold's "Commentary on Fauna Japonica" published in 1833. I also found spring and summer entries for uguisu at the Univ. of Virginia Japanese Haiku: A Topical Dictionary website. BlankVerse ∅ 09:19, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Great! If you let me modify it slightly, 1) Uguisu strongly associated "ume" (plum, but I am not sure), 2) It is called also "Spring herald bird" harutsugedori - but it's a trivial anyway 3) The first occasion to hear uguisu' voice is called "First sound" (hatsune) and it is another kigo.

As for illustration, I think we are better to put male, because the mail bird sings to express his love to a female bird. And not vice versa. --Aphaea* 05:04, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Festival as Autumn kigo?

In Higginson's Haiku Handbook he says that "festival" (matsuri) is an all summer kigo since almost every city and town has a festival, usually associated with a local Shinto shrine. BlankVerse ∅ 08:34, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry! It is totally my flaw memory; I should have consulted books, you are right , there are some additional information like that:

• Matsuri (festival) meant Kamo matsuri (today called Aoi matsuri), the Kamo shrine festival in May [or June] in the literature tradition specially in the Heian period.
• Matsuri as a summer kigo is strongly associated to Shonto ritual at the End of June, minatsuki-barae, ritual for purification.
• Autumn fest and spring fest are kigo for those seasons.--Aphaea* 11:47, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Autumn Festival is a kigo
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/2005/01/autumn-festival-aki-matsuri.html

Festivals of Japan - Matsuri
http://worldkigo2005.blogspot.com/2005/06/festivals-of-japan.html

Google

I just checked at Google. Like many Wikipedia articles, this article is the first listing at Google when you search for "Kigo" (see ([3]). BlankVerse ∅ 03:36, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Peer Review Requested

I have put in a request at Wikipedia:Peer Review as the next step before nominating this article as a Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. BlankVerse ∅ 14:23, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

To see what people have been writting at Peer review, you can visit the Kigo subpage at Wikipedia:Peer review/Kigo/archive1. BlankVerse ∅ 10:33, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions to consider

Feel free to ignore any of these suggestions!

• History of kigo
  • Delete "(zō)" --- the Japanese seems to add nothing. It also appears later more than once.
  • Delete "and it should include a compliment to the host of the renga writing party" unless it has a connection to kigo
  • Delete "Originally called haikai, they were renamed haiku by Shiki very late in the 19th century." because it pertains to a topic that's only a click away, and which readers are more likely to know about than kigo. Or, summarize it, e.g. "(later named "haiku")"
• Japanese seasons
  • Delete "(which is derived from the Chinese calendar)" --- it's a topic for the article on the Japanese calendar
  • Omit Japanese terms "muki" and "zō" unless there's a special need
  • Boldface the kigo rather than the categories in the list, as in the "Common kigo" section below
• Common kigo
  • Organize sequentially within each season

Fg2 11:35, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

Generally agreed. As for "Zo" it is basically not kigo but more appropriate to renga in my opinion. Or you could be there are some topics which are never organized into none of four seasons like pine (matsu), sparrow (suzume, but "child of sparrow" is a spring kigo) and so on. And Zo and Muki could be merged when you want to keep it still in this article. --Larus.r 13:36, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

These are all very good points, and either you or I can go ahead and do some editing on the Kigo article (this is a Wiki!). As for repeating the info on zō and muki. There is a problem in the non-Japanese haiku community in that the word "kigo" has been in common usage for about 50 years, but many of the underlying and related Japanese concepts are not well known. I may have gone a little overboard in emphasizing this info. There is another problem that I am not sure that I have been able to provide a good cure for. For many haiku poets, both Japanese and non-Japanese, haiku absolutely must have a kigo. I have tried to respect that position, but still show that for some people haiku do not absolutely have to have a kigo. Showing that there are haiku with zō and muki is an attempt to show a half-way point between the two positions. BlankVerse ∅ 15:16, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I am concluding we must keep a brief info of muki and zō for NPOV. We should say like the below:

• For majority of haikai (hokku) & haiku poet, kigo is one essential part of their poetry.
• There are however some exceptions calling muki and zō. They are same at the point they have no kigo, but their literature theorical backgrounds are different (Basho and Santoka are different; Santoka avoid intentionally kigo from his haiku, Basho replaced kigo with other significant poetic word and it was a sort of poetic licence. zō part in renga is different from hokku in zō because of requirement under renga rule.

In the modern haiku there are some "muki" haiku attempts and they are admit poets but still today there is a dispute if we can include those muki haiku into haiku (if I recall correctly, a haiku poet Fujita Shōshi opposed strongly).

--Larus.r 06:22, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

After thinking about it for awhile, I am thinking that there may need to be one more section added that would cover the zō (miscellaneous) stanzas of renga and the muki (seasonless) words of haiku, and the paragraph on "keywords" would be moved into this new section. I think that there should also be a muki section added to the section titled "Common kigo in Japanese haiku" that would cover things like the evergreen pine (matsu) and House Sparrows (suzume). BlankVerse ∅ 14:45, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

It sounds neat. I will be happy to see your new section. --Larus.r 15:28, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I had thought that with the last section that I had added that I was finally done adding things and was going to be doing mostly reorganization and copy-editing after that. ;-) BlankVerse ∅ 15:55, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Organizing common kigo? Should it just be alphabetically, or should each season also be divided into the same categories as shown in the Saijiki section (Season, Sky and Heaven, Earth, etc.)? BlankVerse ∅ 15:55, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Now I have no idea. I would like to introduce some ways of organisation of Japanese Saijiki.

• By season and
  1. at the next, by themes: Sky and Heaven, Earth, Humanities ...
  2. under each season, listed kigo from the beginning of season to the end.
• Besides the above, there is an index following kana-order (so for us, alphabetically) at the tail.

Hoping it inspires you, --Larus.r 21:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Photos

File:TojiCrapeMyrtle0096.jpg

Here are a couple more photos to consider.

Commons has a page on lotus. My photo (right) is now a Featured Picture on Commons (a tighter vertical crop is also available) and several other excellent pictures by other photographers are available.

Also, crape myrtle in front of the ancient pagoda at Toji, a temple in Kyoto.

Fg2 12:01, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

A couple of shots of Kinkaku in the snow at Commons:Kyoto#Kinkaku-ji temple 金閣寺. Fg2 21:58, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

And how about sounds like Image:Japanese nightingale note05.ogg (songs of male Japanese bush warbler - "uguisu" in spring)

I oppose to include "New Year fireworks" photo on "Saijiki" section, because fireworks itself is a kigo of autumn (early autumn) and Japanese has generally no habits of New Year fireworks. If we have this photo, it should appear on the "International Kigo" section, not strongly-Japan oriented Saijiki section. It has probably mislead our readers. --Larus.r 06:50, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Some more candidates:

Spring

• ja:Image:Hina001.jpg - Hina dolls for March 3

Summer

• ja:Image:Koinobori.jpg ornament for tango no sekku

Autumn

• ja:Image:Sanma01.jpg - typical autumn dish
• ja:Image:Ine karita.jpg - cropped rice (and rice field

New year

• ja:Image:Simenawa kazari01.jpg new year ornament on the entrance

Thank you for commenting out the New Years fireworks. Even though I try to be cognisant of cultural differences, I am just sooooo used to the association of fireworks with the New Year that I didn't even think about Japan being different until AFTER I had added the picture. I was going to edit it out myself, but got wrapped up in doing other editing and then forgot. Is there a Japanese holiday that is usually associated with fireworks?

For the Koinobori, there is also a nice picture in the English Wiki Koinobori and Kodomo no hi articles, which would go with my desire to add both kigo and pictures related to human activities.

For the Hina Dolls, there is a different picture at Hinamatsuri, but I think I like the Japanese Wiki one better.

For your typical autumn dish, I got the translation 秋刀魚 【さんま(gikun)】 (n) pike (fish); saury. Pike (fish) is Esox, which is not the right fish. It should be Pacific saury, or Cololabis saira. The EN Wikipedia calls that a Mackerel pike, so I guess that I should add the JA photo to the EN stub article (or copy the JA photo to WikiCommons, and then link).

I liked your photo of the rice harvest, and there are more pictures at ja:稲作 and ja:田. There are a couple of photos at Paddy field, but again they aren't as nice, so it looks like there are a couple of more JA Wiki photos to copy over.

For the last picture, I assume that it is a kadomatsu, 門松 【かどまつ】 (n) New Year's pine decoration. Is this another one? ja:Shimekazari kumano01.jpg BlankVerse ∅ 16:00, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

At right: not a poet, but a poem with a kigo.

Kaki kueba...

Thank you for nice photos. As experiment, I put two photos you suggested. Later you would like to modify them in more appropriate way or replace with other photos - as for the new year ornament, it is not kadomatsu (pine at gate) but "shimenawa" - dvine rope (made by straw). Both are for welcoming the New Year, but different ones (perhaps on Commons we can find photos of Kadomatsu, too...). --Larus.r 18:23, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

"Humanities"

yamabuki

The section of examples of significant kigo is great. But it is limited to the nature too much, there are already fests but ordinary things in life are seldom referred. For example, there is no reference to rice cultivation! (Taue, inekari and so on). And it lacks still traditional favorite in Japansee poetry (like "crying deer" [Autumn] or "yamabuki" [Spring] ... (sorry I don't know how English people call yamabuki, but if I recall corerctly I saw a pic in Commons ...) --Larus.r 13:31, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

from Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Japanese-English Dictionary Server

• 山吹 【やまぶき】 (n) (1) variety of yellow rose; Japanese globeflower; (2) gold coin [G][GI][S]
• 山吹色 【やまぶきいろ】 (n) bright golden yellow [Ex][G][GI][S]

I assume that it is the yellow rose or globeflower that you are refering to. The big question is how many examples of kigo are enough to get the concept accross without turning the article into a "List of kigo". My thinking right now was that the list was getting to the point where it was becoming too large a proportion of the article, and I was probably going to trim some of the example kigo. Perhaps what should happen is like in the Japanese wikipedia, there should eventually be a separate article that is a much longer "List of kigo". BlankVerse ∅ 14:51, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

another yamabuki from the WikiMedia Commons

After some thought, I agree that there probably should be some more kigo that fit into the Humanity and Observances categories (which are roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of all entries in most saijiki). At the same time, however, I think that some of the other example kigo should probably be excised because I think the list of example kigo is starting to overwhelm the rest of the article. BlankVerse ∅ 08:08, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

A bit late, yamabuki is not a rose. Please see photo. --Larus.r 13:30, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Apparently it's in the Rosaceae family, but not a member of any of the major subfamilies. BlankVerse ∅ 16:21, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Certainly. Belonging to Rosaceae, but not Rosana. By the way, the upper one is so-called "hitoe", the lower one is so-called "yae", featured in the epithod of Ota Dokan. --Larus.r 11:10, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

............................

Yamabuki is a plant > see here
http://worldkigo2005.blogspot.com/2006/12/yellow-rose-yamabuki.html

.............................

Something new

The "Japanese haiku: a topical dictionary" is part of the Japanese Text Initiative of the University of Virginia Library. They have a moderately-sized kiyose (list of kigo), with a smaller number of saijiki-like entries with example haiku, photographs, and even an occasional sound sample. For the New Years subsection of the Common Kigo section, I've added asterisks (*) after the Japanese name for the kigo that is an external link to the topical dictionary entry. I would like to have some feedback on this addition to the article. Is it worth continueing and adding to all the kigo for which the topical dictionary has larger entries? BlankVerse ∅ 08:08, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps no, but it is good to provide a sketchy overview. It is neat for lazy readers like me to get a rough grasp from one webpage. But now we can concenrate and prune many of redundancy from the section of "Saijiki". --Larus.r 21:10, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

List of kigo

In preparation for trimming down some of the kigo that are in the Common Japanese Kigo section of the Kigo article, I've created a new article, List of kigo. For the new article, I have divided each month into the usual categories (The Year, The Heavens, etc.). I also integrated into the List of Kigo all of the kigo that were in the Saijiki and Non-Japanese Kigo sections of the Kigo article. For many, but not all categories, I have also alphabetized the kigo within the category, and will try to finish that within the next day or two. Some of the photos will also need to be moved around to make things look a little less cluttered (at least when I view the page at 800x600).

Also, I have reworked the To-do list on this Talk page, so if you click the Purge link, you will see the ambitious new To-do list. BlankVerse ∅ 10:05, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Trimming

Though I was the one who began to add every month to the list of kigo, I propose to trim most of month name from the current list. It seems to me enough

• mention "every season and month name can serve as kigo" at the "spring" section.
• provide examples there
• leave the significant kigo including "ikuharu" & "sangatsujin" (Passing Spring & End of March) and "ikuaki" & "kugatsujin" (Passing Autumn & End of September).

So we can trim three of four similar redundant entries.. --Aphaea* 19:58, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is the Kigo article a "Good Article"?

The Kigo article has been submitted for review as a Good Article at Wikipedia:Good article candidates#Media and the arts (literature, media, music, film, games)/ Although the article is currently just under the 32KB requirement [at 31.6 kB (4816 words)], I still listed it as a long article. ^BlankVerse 10:41, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I passed it. mrholybrain 22:47, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

momoko katsu chiru ?

I, as a native japanese, wonder what the word means. Perhaps, this is misunderstanding or mis-spelling. On what reference this word can be find? --124.25.23.226 14:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I got it. It is "momiji katsu chiru", means some leaves turning color, some falling. --Isorhiza 14:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hokku and haiku (and haikai)

I've removed the following from the "History of kigo" section:

Following scholarly precision, the term haikai is used here for the pre-Shiki form and haiku for the post-Shiki form, though popular usage often anachronistically applies haiku to both pre- and post-Shiki verse. Much of what is said here of kigo use in haiku applied to haikai (and the hokku of renga) as well.

Firstly, it is untrue in the sense that the convention which it specifies is not followed in the article; secondly, the convention which it specifies is in any case incorrect: 'haikai' was (and continues to be) used to describe (narrowly) the linked verse form also known as haikai no renga (or renku), and (broadly) the literary genre which includes renku, haiku, haiga, haibun and senryu.

There is a great deal of undesirable inconsistency in the article between the use of 'hokku' and 'haiku'. The usage question is not complex:
Hokku is the term for the opening verse of a renga; it was also used, pre-Shiki, to describe such a verse even when presented independently;
Haiku is the term used by Shiki for standalone hokku; it has come to be used retrospectively by the overwhelming majority, to describe all standalone hokku, including those penned before Shiki's time, even though such verses were known as hokku at the time of writing. While some vociferous argument can be found regarding nomenclature (see e.g. David Coomler's blog) it is largely irrelevant to this article.
I'll come back to this shortly and make a consistency edit, but if anyone wants to make a case for a particular position please do so.
--Yumegusa (talk) 11:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Done that, though the bit in "Must haiku include a kigo?" on Basho is problematic in this respect, as it is unclear whether (standalone) haiku or hokku (from within renku) are being referred to. Probably both combined. But it leaves a fairly glaring inconsistency. Ideas anyone?--Yumegusa (talk) 01:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Since I wrote the "Must haiku include kigo" section: First of all, it does say "out of about 1,000 hokku", so there should be no question about what it is referring to--the opening line of a renku. Basho wrote very few standalone poems, except for those in his travel diaries.

The information was from some private correspondence with a well-known translator of Japanese haiku who knew the info from one of his Japanese reference books. Unfortunately, I never followed up on getting a proper citation for the info, but apparently it was from a well respected reference book on Basho so someone from Japan should be able to track down the info.

As for the confusion about hakai/hokku, that's David Coomler's idiosyncratic theory and it has no support anywhere else in the English-language haiku community. Feel free to always remove it whenever he or one of his followers tries to add it here or in the haiku article. 66.81.248.237 (talk) 15:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

References/ External Links

A large number of the external links listed under 'References' appear to be in direct conflict with WP:EL which frowns on links to Yahoo! groups and blogs. Yet the information to be found in Gabi Greve's WKD (to which most of those links refer) is both reliable and useful. Leave them in in defiance of stated WP policy?--Yumegusa (talk) 01:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Due to lack of response, I'll leave status quo--Yumegusa (talk) 14:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Kigo/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

A good article is—

Well written: (a) the prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct; and (b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation.[1]

Factually accurate and verifiable: (a) it provides references to all sources of information, and at minimum contains a section dedicated to the attribution of those sources in accordance with the guide to layout;[2] (b) at minimum, it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons;[2] and (c) it contains no original research.

Broad in its coverage: (a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;[3] and (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias. Stable: it does not change significantly from day-to-day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.[4] Illustrated, if possible, by images:[5] (a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and (b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.[6]

This articles fails many of the above criteria, specifically:

2b) There is only one citation in the whole thing., means:
i have no idea if 2c) is passed.

Also it has MOS problems: there is a lot of unneccesary bolding, and all the bullet points disrupt flow, the sections are out of order, and the inconsistancy and linkfarming mentioned on the talk page are worrying.

As the sourcing and rewriting problems seem to require a lot of work, i think it is uncontrovertial to say this is not a "Good article" according to our standards, so it must be delisted. It's an interesting topic, so i hope that subsequent improvment will be followed by renomination for GA.Yobmod (talk) 08:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Delist - I've no argument with your position. I will undertake to gradually improve the article, but I don't have the time to put in the necessary work to bring it up to GA standard in the short term.--Yumegusa (talk) 10:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Kigo and seasons in the United States of America

In the Kigo and seasons section there appears the sentence: "A little later in the year pumpkins are also associated with the pumpkin pies that are often part of the US Thanksgiving Day dinner along with turkey and cranberries": I wonder why, in an account of something specifically Japanese. One could pepper the article with analogues in other cultures across the world, but it is not clear to me how this would help clarify understanding of the use of kigo in Japanese poetry. Certainly I cannot see any justification for singling out one non-Japanese culture for comparison. Is there any objection to removing this sentence? JamesBWatson (talk) 13:15, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. There's a whole lot more editing needs done here too though.--Yumegusa (talk) 14:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Claims of the moon's influence on agriculture

I undid the following addition: "However, to an island nation with a massive population, farming is a vital industry and even the smallest increase in production is heavily researched. As any grower or agriculturer can attest, the phases and characteristics of the moon are of increased importance during both the harvest and seeding seasons. It is widely known, yet still falls under the realm of pseudoscience, that seed germination is sped up by a notable margin if sowing is done in cooperation with phases of the moon. Depending upon the type of crop the influence of the moon can strengthen the root system, influence yield, or effect flowering and all this diverse alteration of crop growth is contingent on mere hours."

There are several reasons:

• The only citation given is not sufficient to support the claims. Some random blog post by a layperson is not sufficient evidence to claim the moon somehow mysteriously affects agriculture through some undescribed mechanism that isn't understood by anyone.
• Claims about what "any grower or agriculturer can attest" are too strongly worded. At best, a claim can be made about "Most farmers surveyed believe ..." if such a survey had been done, and that result was found, and a citation given for that survey.
• The claim that "It is widely known, yet still falls under the realm of pseudoscience" is self-contradictory. If it is pseudoscience, then it is not *known*. At the very most, it's possible that it's widely *believed*, but even that claim would need evidence to support it before it should be added to Wikipedia.

--Daniel (talk) 18:33, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

major lack of citations

This page is almost entirely uncited, and most of it is a list of kigo. It seems like listing words belongs on List of kigo. Can we just remove the lists from this page to help it be more focused on what a kigo is? Also, hi, I work at the Brigham Young University library as their Wikipedian-in-Residence and I've been looking at haiku-related pages this week. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 22:32, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Southern California kigo

I found a citation for the list of Southern California season words! It is the blog of the Southern California study group. I think it is a great example of how kigo change based on location. However, I'm not sure if we consider it a reliable source. Thoughts? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:47, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I found another saijiki for the bay area. I think I saw a link to an Alaskan saijiki in the references section too. I will reduce the list of Southern California words to avoid WP:UNDUE. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2024 (UTC)