General Subjects to be Added

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Susumu Takiguchi anouncing the Database Project.
group/WHCjapan/

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Reference Material from the WHCworldkigo Forum


............. ............... .........The discussion so far
by Gabi Greve, Summer 2005
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCworldkigo/

Reading all the comments on the subject so far I will try to sum up my thoughts after doing this compiler's job for about a year now.

The World Kigo Database has many functions, as I realized through the many comments and feedback.

First (and foremost for myself)
To promote the understanding of the Japanese kigo, their necessity, their cultural background, their importance and use in Japanese haiku. This has been done by others and will be done again, but I will contribute to this more

because

once haijin worldwide understand the full importance of kigo in Japanese haiku, they will be better equipped to use this understanding in formulating their own kigo in their own regions and cultures.
We will have to induce a “Kigo Boom” in the haiku world! :o) Big Smile!
This is pioneer work.
And this will be a boom in reflecting one’s own culture and the natural environment, with a poetic aspect to give even more pleasure.

Second
We will provide a database of kigo with detailed explanations of their cultural and regional background and common usage in different parts of the world. I emphasize DETAILED, because the internet makes it easy to add many links to someone who has written about that word before in a different context. So we are only compilers of things found worldwide.
And we will try to find three or more haiku with each kigo, but sometimes even one haiku should be enough to get us started.

On this point, I emphasize the importance of the cultural and anthropological aspect. During this year, I learned a lot about other cultures and areas and your comments were the most emotional when you wrote about the joy of learning something hitherto unknown.
To me sometimes it seemed haiku had indeed become the second fiddle and we were all on a huge discovery together, bound by haiku but not limited by it.

Third
Providing regional kiyose seems important, even if they will begin as simple lists with words and few haiku. Here I strongly feel we must lead the way and provide a tool for haijin in areas where there is indeed NO saijiki available that would fit their area. Our database can fill with haiku as we publish our kiyose for various parts of the world and the regional haijin start making use of them. Again, we are doing pioneer work.

Someone has to make the first step, either the chicken or the egg, and here I feel we have to be both, the chicken AND the egg (and the haijin who eats them both! ).

There are many easy links to local holidays, plants or animals of an area now available on the internet which gives us more access to data than ever before in the dark ages of books! I suggest we make good use of this material. Let us use the internet and all its possibilities and google our way to new horizons.
At least I myself enjoy that immensely when compiling material for a kigo. Sometimes it leads to the strangest things “found on the way”, which makes this job so enjoyable for me (and hopefully for the readers too.!)


Bill has given some good examples to support this: The Japanese Saijiki should be the base from where to diverge only if no other possibility is open.

Worldwide phenomenon which are not included in the Japanese saijiki can easily be placed in their proper local season. Comparison with things similar to Japan can give hints as to where a kigo should go.
“Compromise” will be a big word to use often!

Determining the proper season for a regional kigo will be our active homework for quite a while, I guess.
The basics, as formulated in the beginning of this entry, are still valid, I feel.

Gabi Greve, Summer 2005

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Discussion about the Seasons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCworldkigo/message/806

Bill Higginson about Seasons and Saijiki
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCworldkigo/message/660

Topical Saijiki and the Seasons / Bill Higginson (June 2005)

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* Comments of members on an article about
KIGO in the Wikipedia
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/2006/12/general-information.html

.. .. ..

Problems of traditional Japanese haiku schools and their saijiki. (Chibi June 2005)
Tradition of compiling a SAIJIKI
Authorization of a saijiki, ongoing discussion / Bill Higgionson



Discussion about the Seasons, July 2005
Topical Saijiki and the Seasons / Bill Higginson
Re: Topical Saijiki and the Seasons / Bill Higginson (Chibi)
Re: Topical Saijiki and the Seasons / Bill Higginson (Isabelle)
Topical Saijiki-just some thoughts (Cristi)
Saijiki and Seasons (Bill Higginson responds)

Assigning a word as kigo / Bill Higginson January 2006


Discussions about non-seasonal haiku topics

Read Bill Higginson on this problem:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCworldkigo/message/357


Hot and Cold Coffee , a discussion
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCworldkigo/message/661


See Bill Higginson's advise on two or more season words:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCworldkigo/message/842
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCworldkigo/message/846


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THE HAIKU DATABASE
is an attempt to put into a searchable, sortable, electronic database all important haiku that have appeared in English. I began working on the project in September 1998 and so far (March 2004) have captured 98,500 haiku.

Contact Charles Trumbull for more haiku with special kigo at
THE HAIKU DATABASE PROJECT　 　


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More to be added.


Gabi Greve

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To the World Kigo Database Index
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/