Hokku night. Japanese three-line hokku for schoolchildren. Meeting with a local scientist

The duck clung to the ground.

Covered with a dress of wings

Your bare feet ...

Pungent radish ...

And stern, masculine

A conversation with a samurai.

The moon turned pale in the sky.

The last day of the year has arrived.

Pistils are knocking everywhere.

Oh, spring rain!

Streams run from the roof

Along the hornets' nests.

The wind, filled with rain,

Tears a straw cloak from his shoulders.

Excites spring willows ...

***

Under an open umbrella

Climbing through the branches.

Willows in the first fluff.

From the sky of their peaks

River willows alone

Still pouring rain.

Green willow drops

In the muddy mud the ends of the branches.

Evening low tide hour.

I would like to create poems,

With my old face they are different.

Oh, the first cherry blossoms!

I float to the cherry blossoms

But the oar froze in his hands:

Willows on the shore!

A hillock by the road.

To replace the extinguished rainbow -

Azaleas in the light of the sunset.

To the poet who built himself a new home.

Dew is not afraid of her:

Deeply the bee took refuge

In the petals of a peony.

Saying goodbye to friends

The earth is leaving from under our feet.

I grab onto a light ear ...

The moment of parting has come.

Lightning in the darkness of the night.

Lakes water surface

Resting in the shade of the foliage

Tea pickers are listening.

Waves run across the lake.

Some regret the heat

In a grove of young bamboo

He cries about his old age.

On the way to Suruga

Blooming orange scent

The smell of tea leaves ...

Drive from the dark sky

O mighty river Oi,

May clouds!

My whole century is on the way!

Like digging up a small field

I wander back and forth.

On a rural road

I carried brushwood

Horse to the city ... Cowards home -

A keg of wine on the back.

Students

Don't imitate me too much!

Take a look, what's the use of this similarity? -

Two halves of a melon.

What freshness blows

From this melon in drops of dew,

With sticky wet earth!

The hot summer is in full swing!

How the clouds swirl

On Storm Mountain!

The image of the coolness itself

Draws bamboo with a brush

In the groves of the village of Saga.

"Transparent waterfall" ...

Fell into a light wave

Pine needle.

The actor is dancing in the garden

Through the slits in the mask

The actor's eyes are looking there,

Where the lotus is fragrant.

At a gathering of poets

Autumn is already on the doorstep.

Heart reaches for heart

In a cramped hut.

What a glorious chill!

I rested my heels against the wall

And doze in the middle of the day.

***

Lightning shine!

As if suddenly on his face

The feather grass swayed.

Visit family graves

The whole family wandered off to the cemetery.

They walk, whitened with gray hair,

Leaning on staffs.

Hearing about the passing of Nun Jutei

Oh, don't think you're the kind

Who has no price in the world!

Commemoration day ...

Back in my native village

How the faces have changed!

I read my old age on them.

Everything is like winter melons.

An old village.

Branches are dotted with red persimmon

Near every house.

Deceived by the moonlight

I thought: cherry blossom!

No, cotton field.

Moon over the mountain.

Fog at the foot.

The fields are smoking.

On an autumn full moon night

Who admires you today?

Moon over Yoshino Mountains

Sixteen ri before you.

***
You have read the hokku (poems: haiku: Japanese tricycles) by the poet Basho, one of the great masters of Japanese poetry.
.............

Japanese hokku three-verses for schoolchildren

Japanese hokku triplets
Japanese culture is often referred to as a "closed" culture. Not immediately, not from the first acquaintance, the originality of Japanese aesthetics, the unusual charm of Japanese
customs and beauty of the monuments of Japanese art. One of the manifestations of the "mysterious Japanese soul" - the poetry of hokku - is introduced to us in his material by the lecturer-methodologist Svetlana Viktorovna Samykina, Samara.

I barely got there,
Exhausted, until overnight ...
And suddenly - wisteria flowers!
Basho
Only three lines. Few words. And the reader's imagination has already painted a picture: a tired traveler who has been on the road for many days. He is hungry, exhausted, and now, finally, an overnight stay! But our hero is in no hurry to enter, because suddenly, in an instant, he forgot about all the hardships in the world: he admires the flowers of wisteria.
Hokku, or haiku. How do you like. Homeland - Japan. Date of birth - Middle Ages. Once you open a collection of hokku, you will forever remain a prisoner of Japanese poetry. What is the secret of this unusual genre?
From the core of a peony
A bee crawls out slowly ...
Oh, how reluctant!
Basho
This is how sensitive the Japanese treats nature, reverently enjoys its beauty, absorbs it.
Perhaps the reason for this attitude should be sought in the ancient religion of the Japanese people - Shinto? Shinto preaches: be grateful to nature. She is ruthless and harsh, but more often she is generous and affectionate. It was the Shinto faith that brought up in the Japanese a sensitivity to nature, the ability to enjoy its endless changeability. Shinto was replaced by Buddhism, just as in Russia Christianity supplanted paganism. Shinto and Buddhism are a stark contrast. On the one hand, there is a sacred attitude to nature, reverence for ancestors, on the other, a complex oriental philosophy. Paradoxically, these two religions coexist peacefully in the Land of the Rising Sun. The modern Japanese will admire sakura blossoms, cherries, autumn maples, blazing fire.
From human voices
Shiver fearfully in the evenings
Cherry beauties.
Issa
In Japan, flowers are very fond of, and they prefer simple, wildflowers with their timid and discreet beauty. A tiny vegetable garden or flower bed is often planted near Japanese houses. An expert on this country, V. Ovchinnikov, writes that one must see the Japanese islands in order to understand why their inhabitants consider nature to be the measure of beauty.
Japan is a country of green mountains and sea bays, mosaic rice fields, gloomy volcanic lakes, picturesque pine trees on the rocks. Here you can see the unusual: bamboo, bent under the weight of the snow, is a symbol of the fact that north and south coexist in Japan.
The Japanese subordinate the rhythm of their life to events in nature. Family celebrations are timed to coincide with the sakura blossom, the autumn full moon. Spring on the islands is not quite similar to ours, European, with melting snows, drifts of ice, floods. It starts with a wild burst of bloom. The pink sakura blossoms delight the Japanese not only with their multitude, but also with their fragility. The petals are so precariously held in the inflorescences that at the slightest breath of breeze a pink waterfall streams onto the ground. On such days, everyone rushes out of the city, to the parks. Listen to how the lyrical hero punishes himself for breaking a branch of a blossoming tree:
Throw a stone at me.
Branch of blossoming plum
I just broke off.
Kikaku
The first snow is also a holiday.
In Japan, it does not drop very often. But when he walks, it becomes very cold in the houses, since the houses of the Japanese are light gazebos. And yet the first snow is a holiday. The windows open and, sitting by the little braziers, the Japanese drinks sake, admires the snow flakes that fall on the pines of the pines, on the bushes in the garden.
First snow.
I'd put it on a tray
All would have looked and looked.
Kikaku
Maples were blazing with autumn foliage - in Japan, a holiday of admiring the crimson foliage of maples.
Oh, maple leaves.
The wings you burn
Flying birds.
Siko
All hokku is appeal. To whom?
To the leaves. Why does the poet refer to maple leaves? He loves their bright colors: yellow, red - burning even the wings of birds. Let us imagine for a moment that a poetic appeal would be addressed to the leaves of an oak tree. Then a completely different image would be born - the image of perseverance, endurance, because the leaves of oak trees until winter frosts firmly adhere to the branches.
The classic tristole must reflect a certain season of the year. Issa spoke about autumn:
Peasant in the field.
And showed me the way
Plucked radish.
Of the transience of a sad winter day, Issa will say:
Opening your beak,
The wren did not have time to sing.
The day is over.
And here you, no doubt, remember the sultry summer:
Flocked together
To the sleeping mosquitoes.
Lunch time.
Issa
Think about who lunch is waiting for. Mosquitoes, of course. The author is ironic.
Let's see what the structure of the hokku is. What are the laws of this genre? Its formula is simple: 5 7 5. What do these numbers mean? We can invite children to investigate this problem, and they will certainly find that the above numbers represent the number of syllables in each line. If you look closely at the collection of hokku, we will notice that not all three-verses have such a clear structure (5 7 5). Why? Children themselves will answer this question. The point is that we read Japanese haiku in translation. The translator must convey the author's idea and at the same time maintain a strict form. This is not always possible, and in this case he sacrifices the form.
This genre chooses means of artistic expression extremely sparingly: there are few epithets, metaphors. There is no rhyme, no strict rhythm is observed. How does the author manage to create an image in a few words, with stingy means. It turns out that the poet works a miracle: he awakens the reader's imagination. The art of hokku is the ability to say a lot in a few lines. In a sense, each three-line ends with an ellipsis. After reading a poem, you imagine a picture, an image, you experience it, you rethink, think out, create. That is why we are working for the first time in the second grade with the concept of "artistic image" based on the material of Japanese tricycles.
Willow bent down and sleeps.
And it seems to me, a nightingale on a branch -
This is her soul.
Basho
We discuss the poem.
Remember what we usually see willow?
It is a tree with silvery green leaves, bent by the water, by the road. All the willow branches are sadly lowered down. It is not for nothing that in poetry the willow is a symbol of sadness, sadness, longing. Remember L. Druskin's poem "There is a willow ..." (see V. Sviridova's textbook "Literary reading" 1st grade) or Basho:
All the excitement, all the sadness
Of your troubled heart
Give it back to the flexible willow.
Sadness, longing is not your path, the poet tells us, give this load to the willow, because it is all the personification of sadness.
What can you say about the nightingale?
This bird is nondescript, grayish, but how it sings!
Why is the nightingale the soul of a sad willow?
Apparently, we learned about the thoughts, about dreams, about the hopes of the tree from the song of the nightingale. He told us about her soul, mysterious and beautiful.
In your opinion, is the nightingale singing or silent?
There can be several correct answers to this question (as is often the case in a literature lesson), because everyone has their own image. Some will say that the nightingale, of course, sings, otherwise how would we know about the soul of the willow? Others will think that the nightingale is silent, because it is night, and everything in the world is asleep. Each reader will see his own picture, create his own image.
Japanese art is eloquent in the language of innuendo. Understatement, or yugen, is one of his principles. Beauty is in the depths of things. Manage to notice it, and this requires a delicate taste. The Japanese don't like symmetry. If a vase on the table is in the middle, it is automatically moved to the edge of the table. Why? Symmetry as completeness, as completeness, as repetition is not interesting. So, for example, the dishes on the Japanese table (service) will necessarily have a different pattern, different colors.
Often an ellipsis appears in the final of the hokku. This is not an accident, but a tradition, a principle of Japanese art. For an inhabitant of the Land of the Rising Sun, the thought is important and close: the world is forever changing, therefore, in art there can be no completeness, there can not be a peak - a point of balance and rest. The Japanese even have a catch phrase: "The empty spaces on the scroll are full of more meaning than the brush has drawn on it."
The highest manifestation of the concept of "yugen" is the philosophical garden. This is a poem of stone and sand. American tourists see it as a "tennis court" - a rectangle covered with white gravel, where stones are scattered in disarray. What is the Japanese thinking about looking at these stones? V. Ovchinnikov writes that words cannot convey the philosophical meaning of a garden of stones, for a Japanese it is an expression of the world in its endless variability.
But back to literature. The great Japanese poet Matsuo Basho raised the genre to unrivaled heights. Every Japanese knows his poems by heart.
Basho was born into a family of a poor samurai in the province of Iga, which is called the cradle of old Japanese culture. These are incredibly beautiful places. The poet's relatives were educated people, and Basho himself began to write poetry as a child. His life path is unusual. He took tonsure, but did not become a real monk. Basho settled in a small house near the city of Edo. This hut is sung in his poems.
IN A HUT COVERED BY A CANE
Like a banana groans from the wind,
As drops fall into the tub,
I hear it all night long.
In 1682, a misfortune happened - Basho's hut burned down. And he began a long journey through Japan. His fame grew, and many disciples appeared all over Japan. Basho was a wise teacher, he did not just pass on the secrets of his mastery, he encouraged those who were looking for their own path. True hokku style was born out of controversy. These were the arguments of people truly dedicated to their cause. Bonte, Kerai, Ransetsu, Shiko are the students of the famous master. Each of them had his own handwriting, sometimes very different from that of the teacher.
Basho walked the roads of Japan, bringing poetry to people. In his poems - peasants, fishermen, tea pickers, the whole life of Japan with its bazaars, taverns on the roads ...
Threw for a moment
Peasant threshing rice,
Looks at the moon.
During one of his travels, Basho died. Before his death, he created "Death Song":
I got sick on the way
And everything is running, my dream is spinning
Through the scorched meadows.
Another famous name is Kobayashi Issa. Often his voice is sad:
Our life is a dewdrop.
Let only a drop of dew
Our life - and yet ...
This poem was written for the death of his little daughter. Buddhism teaches not to worry about the departure of loved ones, because life is a dewdrop ... But listen to the poet's voice, how much inescapable grief is in this "and yet ..."
Issa wrote not only on lofty philosophical topics. His own life, fate was reflected in the poet's work. Issa was born in 1763 into a peasant family. The father dreamed of his son becoming a successful merchant. To do this, he sends him to study in the city. But Issa became a poet and, like his brothers in the poetry workshop, walked around the villages, earning a living by composing haiku. Issa got married at 50. Beloved wife, 5 children. The happiness was fleeting. Issa loses all her loved ones.
Maybe that's why he is sad even in the sunny season of flowering:
A sad world!
Even when the cherries are blooming ...
Even then…
Right, in the old life
You were my sister
Sad cuckoo ...
He marries two more times, and the only child who has continued his family line will be born after the death of the poet in 1827.
Issa found his way into poetry. If Basho knew the world, penetrating into its innermost depths, looking for connections between individual phenomena, then Issa in his poems strove to capture accurately and completely the reality surrounding him and his own feelings.
Spring again.
New nonsense comes
The old one to replace.
Cool wind
Bending down to the ground, I contrived
Get me too.
Shh ... for a moment
Shut up, meadow crickets.
It's starting to rain.
Issa makes the subject of poetry everything that his predecessors diligently avoided mentioning in poetry. He connects the low and the high, asserting that every little, every creature in this world should be valued on an equal basis with a person.
Light pearl
The new year has shone for this
Little lice.
Roofer.
Wraps his backside
Spring wind.
Interest in Issa's work in Japan is still great today. The genre of hokku is alive and dearly loved. A traditional poetry competition is still held in mid-January. Tens of thousands of poems on a given topic are submitted to this competition. Such a championship has been held annually since the fourteenth century.
Our compatriots on Internet sites create their own, Russian hockey. Sometimes these are absolutely amazing images, for example, autumn:
New autumn
Opened her season
Toccata of rain.
And gray rains
Long fingers will weave
Long autumn ...
And the "Russian" hokku make the reader think, build an image, listen attentively to the ellipsis. Sometimes these are mischievous, ironic lines. When the Russian national team lost the football championship, the following hockey appeared on the Internet:
Even in football
You need to be able to do something.
It's a pity, they didn't know ...
There are also "ladies'" haiku:
There is nowhere further
To shorten the skirt:
I ran out of legs.
I forgot who I am.
We haven't fought for so long.
Remind me, dear.
But more serious ones:
I will hide it securely
Your pain and resentment.
I'll flash a smile.
Do not say anything.
Just stay with me.
Just love.
Sometimes the "Russian" hokku echoes well-known plots, motives:
The barn is not on fire.
The horse sleeps quietly in the stable.
What is a woman to do?
You, of course, caught the roll call with Nekrasov.
Tanya-chan lost her face,
Crying about the ball rolling into the pond.
Pull yourself together, daughter of a samurai.
Eneke and Beneke were eating sushi.
What would the child not amuse himself, if only
Didn't drink sake.
And always the lines of the hokku are the path to the reader's own creativity, that is, to your personal inner decision of the topic proposed to you. The poem ends, and here the poetic comprehension of the theme begins.

——————————————

This article is part of a group of textbooks from the cycle “Thematic planning for V.Yu. Sviridova and N.A. Churakova "Literary reading" grade 1-4. "

Japan is a country with a very ancient and unique culture. Perhaps there is no other literary genre that would express the Japanese national spirit in such a way as hokku does.

Hokku (haiku) is a lyrical poem, distinguished by its utmost brevity and peculiar poetics. It depicts the life of nature and the life of man against the background of the cycle of the seasons.

In Japan, hokku were not simply invented by someone, but were the product of a centuries-old historical literary and poetic process. Until the 7th century, Japanese poetry was dominated by long poems - "nagauta". In the 7th-8th centuries, the five-verse “tanka” (literally “short song”), which had not yet been divided into stanzas, became the trendsetter of Japanese literary poetry, displacing them. Later, the tanka began to be clearly divided into three lines and couplets, but the hokku did not yet exist. In the 12th century, chain poems “renga” (literally “strung stanzas”) appeared, consisting of alternating three-verses and couplets. Their first three-line was called the "initial stanza" or "hokku" but did not exist on its own. Only in the 14th century did renga reach its highest dawn. The opening stanza was usually the best in its composition, and collections of exemplary hokku appeared and became a popular form of poetry. But only in the second half of the 17th century, hokku as an independent phenomenon firmly established itself in Japanese literature.

Japanese poetry is syllabic, that is, its rhythm is based on the alternation of a certain number of syllables. There is no rhyme: the sound and rhythmic organization of the three-verse is a subject of great concern for Japanese poets.

Hundreds, thousands of poets were and are still taking a great interest in the addition of hokku. Among these countless names, there are four great names now known to the whole world: Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), Yosa Buson (1716-1783), Kobayashi Issa (1769-1827) and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). These poets traveled along and across the Land of the Rising Sun. They found the most beautiful corners in the depths of the mountains, on the sea coast and sang them in verse. They put all the heat of their hearts into a few syllables of the hokku. The reader will open the book - and as if he will see with his own eyes the green mountains of Yoshino, the waves of the surf in the Suma Bay will rustle under the wind. They will sing the sad song of the pine trees in Suminoe.

Hokku has a steady meter. Each verse has a certain number of syllables: five in the first, seven in the second, and five in the third - a total of seventeen syllables. This does not exclude poetic liberty, especially among such daring and innovative poets as Matsuo Basho. He sometimes did not reckon with the meter, striving to achieve the greatest poetic expressiveness.

The dimensions of the hokku are so small that, in comparison, the European sonnet seems like a great poem. It contains a limited number of words, and yet its capacity is relatively large. The art of writing hokku is, first of all, the ability to say a lot in few words.

Brevity makes hokka akin to popular proverbs. Some three-verses have received circulation in folk speech as proverbs, such as Basho's poem:

I will say the word -
Lips freeze.
Autumn whirlwind!

As a proverb, it means that "caution sometimes silences." But more often than not, hokku differs from a proverb in its genre characteristics. This is not an edifying saying, a short parable or a well-aimed wit, but a poetic picture sketched in one or two strokes. The poet's task is to infect the reader with lyrical excitement, to awaken his imagination, and for this it is not necessary to draw a picture in all its details.

A collection of hokku cannot be “skimmed over”, leafing through page after page. If the reader is passive and not attentive enough, he will not perceive the impulse sent to him by the poet. Japanese poetics takes into account the reciprocal work of the reader's mind. This is how the bow strike and the return tremor of the string together give birth to music.

Hokku is small in size, but this does not detract from the poetic or philosophical meaning that the poet is able to give it, does not limit the scale of his thought. However, the poet, of course, cannot give a multifaceted image and extensively, to the end, develop his thought within the limits of the hokku. In every phenomenon, he seeks only its culmination point.

Giving preference to the small, the hockey sometimes painted a large-scale picture:

On a high embankment - pines,
And between them cherries shine through, and the palace
Deep in flowering trees ...

In the three lines of Basho's poem, there are three perspective plans.

Hokku is akin to the art of painting. They were often painted on the subjects of paintings and, in turn, inspired artists; sometimes they turned into a component of the picture in the form of a calligraphic inscription on it. Sometimes poets resorted to methods of representation akin to the art of painting. This, for example, is Buson's three-line:

Rape flowers around.
The sun goes out in the west.
The moon rises in the east.

The wide fields are covered with yellow colza flowers, they seem especially bright in the rays of sunset. The pale moon rising in the east contrasts with the fireball of the setting sun. The poet does not tell us in detail what kind of lighting effect is created, what colors are on his palette. He only offers to take a fresh look at the picture that everyone has seen, maybe dozens of times ... Grouping and selection of pictorial details - this is the main task of the poet. In his quiver he has only two or three arrows: not one should fly by.

Hokku is a little magic picture. It can be compared to a landscape sketch. You can paint a huge landscape on canvas, carefully drawing a picture, or you can sketch a tree bent in the wind and rain with a few strokes. This is how the Japanese poet “draws”, outlining with a few words what we ourselves must conjecture, draw in the imagination. Hokku authors often made illustrations for their poems.

Often the poet creates not visual, but sound images. The howl of the wind, the chirping of cicadas, the cries of a pheasant, the singing of a nightingale and a lark, the voice of a cuckoo - each sound has a special meaning, gives rise to certain moods and feelings.

The lark sings
a thump in the thicket
The pheasant echoes him. (Buson)

The Japanese poet does not unfold before the reader the entire panorama of possible representations and associations that arise in connection with a given subject or phenomenon. It only awakens the reader's thought, gives it a certain direction.

On a bare branch
The raven sits alone.
Autumn evening. (Basho)

The poem is similar to monochrome ink drawing.

There is nothing superfluous here, everything is extremely simple. Using a few skillfully chosen details, a picture of late autumn was created. The absence of wind is felt, nature seems to have frozen in a sad immobility. The poetic image, it would seem, is a little outlined, but it has a large capacity and, bewitching, leads away. The poet depicted a real landscape and through it - his state of mind. He is not talking about the loneliness of the raven, but about his own.

It is quite understandable that there is a lack of agreement in hockey. The poem consists of only three verses. Each verse is very short. Most often, there are two significant words in a verse, not counting formal elements and exclamation points. All unnecessary is squeezed out, eliminated; nothing remains that serves only for decoration. The means of poetic speech are selected very sparingly: the hokku avoids an epithet or metaphor if it can do without them. Sometimes the whole hokku is an expanded metaphor, but its direct meaning is usually hidden in the subtext.

From the core of a peony
A bee crawls out slowly ...
Oh, how reluctant!

Basho composed this poem as he parted with his friend's hospitable home. It would be a mistake, however, to look for this double meaning in every hokku. Most often, hokku is a concrete image of the real world that does not require and does not allow any other interpretation.

Hokku teaches to look for hidden beauty in the simple, imperceptible, everyday. Not only are the glorified, many times sung cherry blossoms beautiful, but also the modest, seemingly imperceptible flowers of a rape, a shepherd's purse.

Look closely!
Shepherd's purse flowers
You will see under the fence. (Basho)

In another poem by Basho, the face of a fisherman at dawn resembles a blooming poppy, and both are equally good. Beauty can strike like a thunderbolt:

I barely got there
Exhausted, until overnight ...
And suddenly - wisteria flowers! (Basho)

Beauty can be deeply hidden. The feeling of beauty in nature and in human life is akin to a sudden comprehension of the truth, the eternal principle, which, according to Buddhist teachings, is invisibly present in all phenomena of life. In the hokku, we find a new rethinking of this truth - the assertion of beauty in the imperceptible, everyday:

They frighten them, drive them from the fields!
Sparrows will fly up and hide
Protected by tea bushes. (Basho)

Tremble at the horse's tail
Spring cobwebs ...
Tavern at noon hour. (Izen)

In Japanese poetry, hakku are always symbolic, always filled with deep feeling and philosophical content. Each of their lines carries a high semantic load.

How the autumn wind whistles!
Then you will only understand my verses,
When you spend the night in the field. (Matsuo Basho)

Throw a stone at me!
Cherry blossom branch
I just broke off. (Chikarai Kikaku, disciple of Basho)

Not ordinary people
The one who beckons
A tree without flowers. (Onitsura)

The moon came out
And every little bush
Invited to the holiday. (Kobaashi Issa)

Deep meaning, passionate appeal, emotional tension in these short lines and necessarily the dynamics of thought or feeling!

When composing a hokku, the poet must have mentioned what time of year he is talking about. And collections of hokku were also usually divided into four chapters: "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn", "Winter". If you carefully read the three-verse, you can always find a "seasonal" word in it. For example, about melt water, about flowers on plums and cherries, about the first swallows, about a nightingale. Singing frogs are spoken of in spring verses; about cicadas, about a cuckoo, about green grass, about lush peonies - in summer; about chrysanthemums, about scarlet maple leaves, about the sad trills of a cricket - in the autumn; about bare groves, about a cold wind, about snow, about frost - in winter. But the hokku doesn't just talk about flowers, birds, wind, and the moon. Here is a peasant planting rice bores in a flooded field, here travelers came to admire the snow cap on the sacred Mount Fuji. How many people here will accept the life of the Japanese - both everyday and festive. One of the most revered holidays among the Japanese is the cherry blossom holiday. Its branch is a symbol of Japan. When the cherry blossoms, everyone, young and old, with their families, friends and family gathers in gardens and parks to admire the pink and white clouds of delicate petals. This is one of the oldest Japanese traditions. They are carefully preparing for this spectacle. To choose a good place, you sometimes have to come a day earlier. The Japanese tend to celebrate cherry blossoms twice: with colleagues and with family. In the first case, it is a sacred duty that is not violated by anyone; in the second, it is a real pleasure. The contemplation of cherry blossoms has a beneficial effect on a person, adjusts to a philosophical mood, causes admiration, joy, peace.

The hakku of the poet Issa are both lyrical and ironic:

In my native country
Cherry blossoms
And there is grass in the fields!

"Cherries, cherry blossoms are blooming!" -
And about these old trees
They sang once ...

Spring again.
New nonsense comes
The old one to replace.

Cherries and those
Can become disgusting
To the squeak of mosquitoes.

Hokku is not just a poetic form, but something more - a certain way of thinking, a special way of seeing the world. Hokku unites worldly and spiritual, small and great, natural and human, momentary and eternal. Spring - Summer - Autumn - Winter - This traditional division has a broader meaning than simply categorizing poems according to seasonal themes. In this single time space, not only nature moves and changes, but also the person himself, in whose life there are Spring - Summer - Autumn - Winter. The natural world unites with the human world in eternity.

Whichever hockey we take, there is one main character everywhere - a man. Japanese poets from their hokku try to tell how a person lives on earth, what he thinks about, how sad and having fun. They also help us to feel and understand the beautiful. After all, everything is beautiful in nature: a huge oak, and a nondescript blade of grass, and a red deer, and a green frog. Even if you think about mosquitoes in winter, you will immediately remember the summer, the sun, walks in the forest.

Japanese poets teach us to take care of all living things, to pity all living things, because pity is a great feeling. He who does not know how to truly regret will never become a kind person. Poets repeat over and over again: peer into the familiar and see the unexpected, peer into the ugly and see the beautiful, peer into the simple and see the complex, peer into the particles and see the whole, peer into the small and see the great. To see the beauty and not remain indifferent - this is what the poetry of the hokku calls us to, glorifying humanity in Nature and spiritualizing the life of Man.

BASHO (1644-1694)

Evening bindweed
I am captured ... motionless
I stand in oblivion.

There's such a moon in the sky
Like a tree has been cut down at the root:
A fresh cut turns white.

The yellow leaf is floating.
Which shore, cicada,
What if you wake up?

Willow bent down and sleeps.
And, it seems to me, a nightingale on a branch -
This is her soul.

How the autumn wind whistles!
Then you will only understand my verses,
When you spend the night in the field.

And I want to live in the fall
This butterfly: drinks hastily
With chrysanthemum dew.

Oh wake up, wake up!
Become my friend
Sleeping moth!

The jug burst with a bang:
At night, the water in it froze.
I woke up suddenly.

Stork's nest in the wind.
And below it - beyond the storm -
Cherry has a calm color.

Long day long
Sings - and will not get drunk
Lark in the spring.

Over the expanse of fields -
Not tied to the ground by anything -
The lark is ringing.

May show rains.
What's this? Has the rim burst on the barrel?
The sound is obscure at night.

Pure spring!
Ran up my leg
Small crab.

Today is a clear day.
But where do the drops come from?
There is a patch of clouds in the sky.

To praise the poet Rick

As if I took it in my hands
Lightning when in the dark
You lit a candle.

How fast the moon flies!
On stationary branches
Raindrops hung.

Oh no, ready
I won't find comparisons for you
Three-day month!

Hanging motionless
A dark cloud in half the sky ...
It can be seen that the lightning is waiting.

Oh, how many there are in the fields!
But each blooms in its own way -
This is the highest feat of a flower!

I wrapped my life around
Around the suspension bridge
This wild ivy.

Spring is leaving.
Birds cry. Fish eyes
Full of tears.

A garden and a mountain in the distance
Trembled, move, enter
Into the summer open house.

May rains
The waterfall was buried -
Filled with water.

On the old battlefield

Summer herbs
Where the heroes disappeared
Like a dream.

Islets ... Islets ...
And it is crushed into hundreds of fragments
The sea of ​​a summer day.

Silence all around.
Penetrate into the heart of the rocks
The voices of the cicadas.

The Gate of the High Tide.
Washes the heron up to the chest
Cool sea.

Small perches are dried
On the willow branches ... How cool!
Fishing huts on the shore.

Soaking wet, walking in the rain
But this traveler is also worthy of a song,
Not only hagi in bloom.

Parting with a friend

Farewell verses
I wanted to write on a fan -
He broke in his hand.

In the bay of Tsuruga,

where the bell once sank

Where are you, moon, now?
Like a sunken bell
Hidden at the bottom of the sea.

The house is in solitude.
Moon ... Chrysanthemums ... in addition to them
A piece of a small field.

In a mountain village

Nuns story
About the previous service at the court ...
There is deep snow all around.

Mossy gravestone.
Under it - in reality or in a dream? -
A voice whispers prayers.

The dragonfly is spinning ...
Can't get caught in any way
Behind the stalks of flexible grass.

The bell fell silent in the distance
But the scent of evening flowers
Its echo floats.

Falls with a leaf ...
No, look! Half way
The firefly fluttered.

Fisherman's hut.
Mixed up in a pile of shrimp
Lonely cricket.

Sick Goose Down
In the field on a cold night.
Lonely sleep on the way.

Even a wild boar
Will whirl, carry away with it
This winter whirlwind of the field!

Sad me
Drink harder with sadness
Cuckoos are a distant call!

I clapped my hands loudly.
And where the echo sounded,
The summer moon is turning pale.

On a full moon night

A friend sent me as a gift
Rhys, and I invited him
On a visit to the moon itself.

Deep antiquity
It breathed ... the garden near the temple
Filled with a dead leaf.

So easy easy
Swam out - and in the cloud
The moon pondered.

White fungus in the forest.
Some kind of unfamiliar sheet
It stuck to the hat.

Dewdrops glisten.
But they have a taste of sadness
Do not forget!

That's right, this cicada
Singing all out? -
One shell remained.

Opal foliage.
The whole world is one color.
Only the wind is buzzing.

We planted trees in the garden.
Quiet, quiet, to cheer them up,
The autumn rain whispers.

So that a cold whirlwind
Give the aroma to drink, they opened up again
Late autumn flowers.

Rocks among cryptomeria!
How sharpened their prongs
Winter cold wind!

Snow covered everything.
Lonely old woman
In the forest hut.

Planting rice

I didn't have time to take my hands away
As the spring breeze
He settled in a green sprout.

All the excitement, all the sadness
Of your troubled heart
Give it back to the flexible willow.

Shut her mouth tightly
Sea shell.
Unbearable heat!

In memory of the poet Tojun

Stayed and left
Bright moon ... stayed
A table with four corners.

Seeing a painting for sale
works by Kano Motonobu

... Brushes of Motoonobu himself!
How sad is the fate of your masters!
The twilight of the year is approaching.

Under an open umbrella
Climbing through the branches.
Willows in the first fluff.

From the sky of their peaks
River willows alone
Still pouring rain.

Saying goodbye to friends

The earth is leaving from under our feet.
I grab onto a light ear ...
The moment of parting has come.

Transparent Waterfall ...
Fell into a light wave
Pine needle.

Hung in the sun
The cloud ... Look over it -
Migratory birds.

Autumn haze
Broke and chases away
Friends chat.

Death song

I got sick on the way.
And everything is running, my dream is spinning
Through the scorched fields

A lock of deceased mother's hair

If I take her in my hands,
Will melt - my tears are so hot! -
Autumn frost of hair.

Spring morning.
Over every nameless hill
Transparent haze.

I walk along a mountain path.
Suddenly it became easy for me for some reason.
Violets in the dense grass.

On a mountain pass

To the capital - there, in the distance, -
Half of the sky remains ...
Snow clouds.

She's only nine days old.
But both fields and mountains know:
Spring has come again.

Where it once stood

Buddha statue

The cobwebs above.
I see the image of Buddha again
At the foot of the empty.

Soaring larks above
I sat down in the sky to rest -
On the very crest of the pass.

Visiting the city of Nara

On Buddha's birthday
He was born into the world
Little fawn.

Where it flies
The cry of the dawn cuckoo,
What's in there? - A distant island.

Sanemori flute

Sumadera Temple.
I hear the flute is playing by itself
In the dark thick of trees.

KYORAI (1651-1704)

How is it, friends?
A man looks at the cherry blossoms
And on the belt is a long sword!

To the death of a younger sister

Alas, in my hand,
Weakening imperceptibly
My firefly went out.

ISSE (1653-1688)

Have seen everything
My eyes - and returned
To you, white chrysanthemums.

RANSETSU (1654-1707)

Autumn moon
Draws a pine tree with ink
In blue skies.

Flower ... And another flower ...
This is how the plum blossom
So the warmth comes.

I looked at midnight:
Changed the course
Heavenly river.

KIKKAKU (1661-1707)

Midget swarm
Flies up - floating bridge
For my dream.

A beggar on the way!
In the summer all his clothes are
Heaven and earth.

To me at dawn in a dream
My mother came ... don't drive her away
With your cry, cuckoo!

How beautiful your fish are!
But if only, old fisherman,
You could try them yourself!

Paid tribute
Earthly and quieted down,
Like the sea on a summer day.

JOSO (1662-1704)

And fields and mountains -
The snow quietly stole everything ...
It was immediately empty.

Moonlight is pouring from the sky.
Hid in the shadow of the idol
Blinded owl.

ONITSURA (1661-1738)

Nowhere is water from the vat
Throw me out now ...
Cicadas are singing everywhere!

CHIEO (1703-1775)

During the night bindweed
Around the bucket of my well ...
I'll take water from a neighbor!

To the death of a little son

Oh my dragonfly catcher!
To an unknown distance
Are you running in today?

Full moon night!
Not even the birds were locked
Doors in their nests.

Dew on saffron flowers!
It will spill to the ground
And it will become simple water ...

O bright moon!
I walked and walked to you
And you are still far away.

Only their cries are audible ...
Egrets are invisible
In the morning on fresh snow.

Spring plum blossom
Gives its scent to a person ...
The one who broke the branch.

KAKAY (1648-1716)

The autumn whirlwind is raging!
Barely born month
He is about to sweep away from heaven.

SIKO (1665-1731)

Maple leaves!
The wings you burn
Flying birds.

BUSON (1716-1783)

From this willow
Evening dusk begins.
Road to the field.

They came out of the box ...
How could I forget your faces? ..
It's time for holiday dolls.

An overweight bell.
And at the very edge
The butterfly is dozing.

Only the top of Fuji
Not buried underneath
Young leaves.

Cool breeze.
Leaving the bells
The evening chime floats.

An old well in the village.
The fish darted after the midge ...
A dark splash in the depths.

Thunderstorm downpour!
A little holding on to the grass
A flock of sparrows.

The moon is shining so brightly!
Bumped into me suddenly
The blind man - and laughed ...

"The storm has begun!" -
Burglar on the road
Warned me.

Cold penetrated to the heart:
On the crest of the deceased's wife
I stepped in the bedroom.

I hit with an ax
And froze ... What a scent
It blew in the winter forest!

Westward moonlight
Moves. Shadows of flowers
They go east.

The summer night is short.
Sparkled on the caterpillar
Dawn dew drops.

KITO (1741-1789)

I met a messenger on the way.
Spring wind playing
It rustles with an open letter.

Thunderstorm downpour!
Fallen dead
The horse comes to life.

Walking through the clouds
And suddenly on a mountain path
Through the rain - cherry blossom!

ISSA (1768-1827)

This is how the pheasant screams,
As if it was he who discovered
The first star.

The winter snow melted.
Lit up with joy
Even the faces of the stars.

There are no strangers between us!
We are all brothers to each other
Under the cherry blossoms.

Look, nightingale
Sings the same song
And in the face of the gentlemen!

Passing wild goose!
Tell me your wanderings
When did you start?

Oh cicada, don't cry!
No love without parting
Even for the stars in the sky.

Snow melted -
And suddenly the whole village is full
Noisy kids!

Ah, don't trample the grass!
There the fireflies were shining
Yesterday at night.

The moon came out
And the smallest bush
Invited to the holiday.

Right, in the old life
You were my sister
Sad cuckoo ...

Wood - for the frame ...
And the birds are carefree
They make a nest there!

Do not quarrel on the way
Help each other like brothers
Migratory birds!

To the death of a little son

Our life is a dewdrop.
Let only a drop of dew
Our life - and yet ...

Oh, if only the autumn whirlwind
I brought so many fallen leaves
To warm the hearth!

Quiet, quietly crawl
Snail, on the Fuji slope
Up to the heights!

In the thickets of weeds,
See how beautiful
The butterflies were born!

I punished the child
But tied him to a tree there,
Where the cool wind blows.

A sad world!
Even when the cherries are blooming ...
Even then…

So I knew in advance
That they are beautiful, these mushrooms,
Killing people!

The beauty of poetry enchants almost all people. No wonder they say that music can tame even the most ferocious beast. So the beauty of creativity sinks deep into the soul. How do poems differ? Why are Japanese hokku three-lines so attractive? And how to learn to perceive their deep meaning?

The beauty of Japanese poetry

The light of the moon and the fragile tenderness of the morning snow inspire Japanese poets to create three lines of unusual brightness and depth. Japanese hokku is a poem characterized by lyricism. In addition, it can be unfinished and leave room for imagination and thoughtful thinking. Hokku (or haiku) poetry does not tolerate haste or harshness. The philosophy of these creations of the soul is directed directly into the hearts of the listeners and reflects the secret thoughts and secrets of the writer. The common people are very fond of creating these short poetic formulas, where there are no unnecessary words, and the syllable harmoniously passes from the folk into the literary, continuing to develop and generate new poetic forms.

The emergence of the national poetic form

The original poetic forms so famous in Japan are the five and three lines (tanka and hokku). Tanka is literally interpreted as a short song. Initially, this was the name of folk songs that appeared at the dawn of Japanese history. The nagaut, which was distinguished by its excessive length, was supplanted into the tank. In folklore, epic and lyrical songs of variable length have been preserved. Over the years, Japanese hokku split from tanks during the heyday of urban culture. Hokku contains all the wealth Japan's poetry history has had periods of both prosperity and decline. There were times when Japanese hokku could disappear altogether. But over a long period of time it became obvious that short and capacious poetic forms are a necessity and an urgent need for poetry. Such forms of poetry can be composed quickly, under a storm of emotions. You can put your hot thought into metaphors or aphorisms, making it memorable, reflecting praise or reproach.

Characteristics of Japanese poetry

Japanese poetry hokku is distinguished by its striving for brevity, concise forms, love of minimalism, which is inherent in Japanese national art, which is universal and can create minimalistic and monumental images with equal virtuosity. Why is Japanese hockey so popular and attractive? First of all, this is a concise thought, reflected by the thoughts of ordinary citizens who are wary of the traditions of classical poetry. Japanese hokku becomes the bearer of a capacious idea and responds most of all to the needs of growing generations. The beauty of Japanese poetry lies in the depiction of those objects that are close to every person. It shows the life of nature and man in harmonious unity against the backdrop of the changing seasons. Japanese poetry is syllabic, with a rhythm based on the alternation of the number of syllables. Hokku rhyme is unimportant, but the primary is the sound and rhythmic organization of the three-line.

Poem size

Only the unenlightened thinks that this original verse has no parameters or limitations. Japanese hokku has a fixed meter with a certain number of syllables. Each verse has its own number: in the first - five, in the second - seven, and in the third - only seventeen syllables. But this does not limit the poetic liberty. A true creator will never reckon with the meter in achieving poetic expressiveness.

The small size of the hokku makes even a European sonnet monumental. The art of writing Japanese hokku lies precisely in the ability to express thoughts in a concise manner. In this respect, hokku bears similarities to popular proverbs. The main differences between such proverbs and hokku lie in genre characteristics. Japanese hokku is not an edifying saying, not a well-aimed wit, but a poetic picture, framed in a few strokes. The task of the poet is in lyrical excitement, flight of imagination and detail of the picture. Hokku has Japanese examples even in the works of Chekhov. In his letters, he describes the beauty of moonlit nights, stars and black shadows.

Essential Elements of the Creativity of Japanese Poets

The way of creating Japanese tricycles requires the maximum activity of the writer, full immersion in creativity. A collection of hokku cannot simply be skimmed over without focusing attention. Each poem requires thoughtful reading and philosophical reflection. The passive reader will not be able to feel the impulse inherent in the content of creation. Only with the joint work of the thoughts of the reader and the creator is true art born, just as the wave of the bow and the trembling of the string give rise to music. The miniature size of the hokku does not at all facilitate the task of the creator, because this means that in a small number of words you need to accommodate the immense, and there is simply no time for a lengthy presentation of your thoughts. In order not to express the meaning hastily, the writer looks for a culmination in every phenomenon.

Japanese hokku heroes

Many poets express their thoughts and emotions in hokku by transferring the main role to a specific object. Some poets reflect the popular worldview with a loving depiction of small forms and the affirmation of their right to life. Poets intercede in their creations for insects, amphibians, ordinary peasants and gentlemen. Therefore, the examples of Japanese hokku three-lines have a social sound. The emphasis on small shapes allows you to paint a picture on a large scale.

The beauty of nature in verse

Japanese nature hokku is akin to painting, as it often becomes a transfer of the plot of paintings and a source of inspiration for artists. Sometimes the hokku is a special component of the painting, which is presented as a calligraphic lettering underneath. Buson's three-lineage is considered a striking example of such work:
"Rice flowers around. The sun goes out in the west. The moon rises in the east."

Describes wide fields covered with yellow colza flowers, which seem especially bright in the rays of sunset. The fireball of the sun contrasts effectively with the pallor of the rising moon. The hokku does not detail the lighting effect and color palette, but it does offer a fresh look at the painting. The grouping of the main elements and details of the picture depends on the poet. The laconic manner of the image makes Japanese hokku similar to the ukiyo-e color engraving:

Spring rain is pouring!
They talk along the way
Umbrella and mino.

This Buson's hokku is a genre scene in the spirit of an ukiyo-e engraving. Its meaning is in a conversation between two passers-by in the spring rain. One of them is covered with an umbrella, and the second is dressed in a straw raincoat - mino. The peculiarity of this hokku is the fresh breath of spring and subtle humor, close to the grotesque.

Images in poems by Japanese poets

The poet who creates Japanese hokku often prefers sound rather than visual images. Each sound is filled with a special meaning, feeling and mood. The howl of the wind, the chirping of cicadas, the cries of a pheasant, the singing of a nightingale and a lark, the voice of a cuckoo can be reflected in the poem. This is how the hokku is remembered, describing an entire orchestra playing in the forest.

The lark sings.
A resounding blow in the thicket
The pheasant echoes him.
(Basho)

Readers do not have a three-dimensional panorama of associations and images, but a thought awakens with certain directions. The poems are reminiscent of monochrome ink drawing, without unnecessary details. Only a few skillfully selected elements help to create a picture of late autumn that is brilliant in its laconicism. One can feel the prewind silence and sad stillness of nature. The light contour of the image, however, has an increased capacity and fascinates with its depth. And even if only nature is described in the poem, then one can feel the state of the poet's soul, his painful loneliness.

Flight of the reader's imagination

The appeal of the hokku lies in the feedback. Only this poetic form allows one to have equal opportunities with the writers. The reader becomes a co-author. And he can be guided by his imagination in sketching the image. Together with the poet, the reader experiences sadness, shares the melancholy and plunges into the depths of personal experiences. Over the long centuries of existence, the ancient hokku has not become less profound. Rather, he does not show Japanese hockey, but hints and prompts. The poet Issa expressed his longing for the deceased child in hokku:

Our life is a dewdrop.
Let only a drop of dew
Our life - and yet ...

At the same time, dew is a metaphor for the frailty of life. Buddhism teaches the brevity and ephemerality of human life and its low value. But still, the father cannot come to terms with the loss of a loved one and cannot relate to life like a philosopher. His silence at the end of the stanza speaks more words.

Lack of agreement in hokku

An indispensable element of Japanese hokku is lack of agreement and the ability to independently continue the line of the creator. Most often, the verse contains two significant words, and the rest is formality and exclamation. All unnecessary details are discarded, leaving the bare facts unadorned. Poetic means are chosen very sparingly, since, if possible, metaphors and epithets are not used. It also happens that Japanese poems are hokku, but the direct meaning lies in the subtext.

From the core of a peony
A bee crawls out slowly ...
Oh, how reluctant!

Basho wrote this poem at the moment of parting with his friend's house and clearly conveyed all the emotions.

The Japanese pose of hokku was and remains an innovative art belonging to ordinary people: merchants, artisans, peasants and even beggars. Sincere feelings and natural emotions inherent in every person bring together representatives of various classes.