11 Facts About Haiku

Haiku originated as an opening part of a larger Japanese poem called renga.

Haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century.

Haiku traditionally contains a kigo, a word or phrase that symbolizes or implies the season of the poem and which is drawn from a saijiki, an extensive but prescriptive list of such words.

Haiku continues to be revered as a saint of poetry in Japan, and is the one name from classical Japanese literature that is familiar throughout the world.

Haiku favored the painterly style of Buson and particularly the European concept of plein-air painting, which he adapted to create a style of haiku as a kind of nature sketch in words, an approach called shasei.

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Haiku popularized his views by verse columns and essays in newspapers.

Haiku produced a series of works on Zen, haiku, senryu, and on other forms of Japanese and Asian literature.

Haiku's works have stimulated the writing of haiku in English.

In February 2008, the World Haiku Festival was held in Bangalore, gathering haijin from all over India and Bangladesh, as well as from Europe and the United States.

Haiku's returned to the United States, where she worked to interest others in this "new" form.

Haiku subsequently had a considerable influence on Imagists in the 1910s, notably Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" of 1913, but, notwithstanding several efforts by Yone Noguchi to explain "the hokku spirit", there was as yet little understanding of the form and its history.