KIGO - use in haiku

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The use of kigo in worldwide haiku

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A traditional Japanese haiku contains one kigo.
Discussion see below.

Kigo 季語　is a word (GO 語) indicating the season (KI　季）in which the haiku takes place.
This is a short form for kisetsu no kotoba　季節の言葉, season word, seasonal word, seasonal phrase, seasonal expression.
Such a word or phrase does not only refer to a phenomenon in nature (the bees and the butterflies, the weather report), but it shows us how things change within each season.

Furthermore it incorporates the seasonal aspects in human life, such as ceremonies and festivals, livestyle and food, as they flow within the seasons. They are the large pool of "social season words".

Traditional Japanese haiku are about the changes of the season (not simply about nature !! ) and the season words help to express this feeling of change.


They carry the weight of Japanese poetic culture and can be called
"cultural keywords", the vocabulary a poet needs to write haiku.
Since many things are with us all year round, it takes the time when they are "at their best (shun　旬 )" usually, to use them in haiku.
WKD : Shun and Vegetables


Japanese Kigo are a Key to Japanese Culture

Worldwide Season Words are
a Key to Worldwide Cultures


Take your time to make yourself familiar with the broad range of Japaese kigo and then, after observing your surroundings, collect new season words for your own region and share them with your haiku friends.



Many Japanese kigo refere to poetry and customs of China, though.

. The Chinese roots of Japanese kigo .


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About Japanese Kigo

"Do you know the true power of a seasonal word?
These words do not belong to the author of the poem, they do not belong to Basho or Issa or Kyorai. They belong to us.
Seasonal words are our national treasures.
They are like jewels, polished and made more precious by time.
Some seasonal words have been in use since the Edo period. When we pick up one of these jewels and use it in a haiku, it is rich with history.
They are the shared consciousness of our people. They capture the essence of Japanese life."

Read more of her thoughts on kigo
©　Kuroda Momoko 黒田杏子


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Sometimes the Japanese kigo is called "haiku no inochi" the lifeblood of the haiku, or "haiku no heso" the navel of the haiku. Beyond the flesh and bone of a haiku is the kigo, the marrow, the essence of it. Season words are one of the important ingredients that have chrystallized as a standard definition of a Japanese haiku during the ages.

Japanese season words, honed throught ages of poetry writing, carry a certain mood, an emotional state of experiencing things that should be reflected in the haiku they are used in. A haiku poet studies his saijiki to make sure he finds the right kigo to express the mood he wants to convey with his poem.

"Kigo o ikasu", to bring the kigo to life, is therefore one of the first words of advise a Japanese haiku sensei will give his students.

"Kigo ga kiite imasu", the kigo worked very well with this haiku, is a sentence of appraisal when the two other lines fit just perfectly to add to the image of this kigo.

"kigo ga ugokimasen"
The choosen kigo can not be replaced by another.
versus
"kigo ga ugoku" 季語が動く
the kigo can be replaced by any other, thus it is rather weak.


The Japanese haiku in its relation to the season is also often called
"kisetsu no aisatsu", a seasonal greeting,
whereby the kigo carries the seasonal message.
In the hokku　発句 first verse of a renku 連句　linked poem of the Edo period and up to our times this was usually written by the most important guest (very often Matsuo Basho) as a greeting to the host.
By carefully choosing a plant or an animal for example the guest could playfully hint at a feature of his host.
It takes a few years of study with a Japanese sensei to be able to use kigo skillfully in this way.

We do have days in early spring and late autumn, where the four seasons seem to rush through within a few hours ... but that does not prevent the Japanese haiku poet from using kigo.

Since most kigo were defined before the advent of the modern calendar and adhere to the Asian lunar calendar, they to not always match the acutal seasons we have now in Japan and the vaste differences of seasons from Northern Hokkaido to Subtropical Okinawa.
Yet for the conventions and purpose of writing haiku, we use the saijiki to determine the "season" of a kigo, the "Haiku Season".


The Asian Lunar Calendar and Ceremonies

A lunar month started with no-moon, had the full moon on the 15th and 28 days to go.
The first lunar month of a year started the round of 12 months.
With the calendar reform in Japan, things changed, making the life of a haiku poet more difficult.

Please read the details here:

. The Asian Lunar Calendar and the
changing Dates of Japanese Ceremonies


. WKD Kigo Calendar - the 12 Months .

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Spring rain (harusame), autumn wind (akikaze), these words might sound like the normal weather forecast to a non-Japanese.
But as Japanese kigo, they carry a lot of cultural associations from the long history of poetry in Japan and even classical China. For a Japanese, these simple words open a large door of associations to the width and depth and essence of human nature within the universe, and reach far beyond normal time and space.

They have been polished over centruies by poets, to reflect the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of human life.

As you can see in the statistics below, obsevances contributet a lot of the kigo. To really undertand a traditional Japanese haiku, you have to know a lot of cultural background that has nothing to do with simple vocabulary translation, but with Japanese and even Asian culture in general.

This "basic meaning" of a kigo is usually called
hon-i, hon'i, #honi 本意 (ほんい)
in Japanese. This is also pronounced ほい ho-i. The basic meaning is something a haiku poet has to learn like a new vocabulary with each kigo. It contains the cultural context of the word used in Japanese poetry and sometimes implies components not found in the natural surroundings.
It contains "poetic nature", not "nature nature".
By sharing the hon-i, poet and reader could enter the same world of associations.

established essence, genuine purports

A kiyose lists the kigo as a kind of vocabulary, the saijiki adds the hon-i information and gives example haiku to study the skilfull use of the words.


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quote - Richard Gilbert
After haiku became a fully independent genre,
the term "kigo" was coined by Otsuzi Ōsuga (1881-1920) in 1908.
"Kigo" is thus a new term for the new genre approach of "haiku."
So, when we are looking historically at hokku or haikai stemming from the renga tradition, it seems best to use the term "kidai."
. WKD : Kigo and Kidai .

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. WKD : hon-i 本意 - "the real meaning"
(honto no imi 本当の意味)


Reference : hon-i


My Daruma Museum is also a good reference about Japanese Culture.

. Daruma Museum Japan


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You should not try to use Japanese kigo that do not fit your cultural background or region.
The aim of the World Kigo Database is to help you understand the basics of Japanese kigo to enable you to establish a saijiki of your own region, share the treasures of your own culture !
You will be the cultural ambassador of your area via haiku, open a gate to your regional culture via the introduction of your kigo.
Please help create and find new words that carry enough cultural background to be a new kigo for your area!

Even in Japan there are now movements to collect new kigo from rural areas, even in local dialect, to compile "local saijiki" with
"local kigo" (chibo kigo, chiboo kigo 地貌季語).



Kigo used in a worldwide context are
NOT pinned down to a calendar month.

Read the details on this problem HERE:
Kigo, Seasons and Categories

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The Japanese characers 季語　can be written in Romaji in various ways
KIGO, "kigo", Kigo or kigo, even KIgo or kiGO ...

Some theorists of ELH (English Language Haiku) prefer to use the term "season word" for "kigo" originating in other cultures.
I think our ancestors have been observing nature and drawing conclusions on how the weather will develop, their very life depended on reading nature properly to survive. They used a lot of season words to describe their detailed and keen observations and pass their knowledge on to their children.
But these words are not "kigo". There are many Japanese season words which never became a kigo.

So what does it take
to change a "season word" into a "kigo" ?

A word or expression must be used in a haiku to become a "kigo", so it takes a haiku poet to do this transformation.
As we use the technical terms from Japanese poetic theory to talk about
haiku, saijiki, kire, kireji, ma, wabi, sabi, yuugen . .
we should also use the technical term
kigo
when a season word is used in a haiku in a language other than Japanese.


to be continued as the discussion goes on ... !

Gabi Greve


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In Japanese haiku, we have kigo, seasonal words, which are not only the selected words typical of seasons but also an accumulation of more than a millennium of our poetry.
By making use of this kigo, we can convey the feeling of pain and agony in a simple line.

Emiko Miyashita about Arima Akito


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Oasis in The Heart
Toshimi Horiuchi

A haiku without a kigo loses compactness and succumbs to the prosaic. Haiku follows this axiom: ‘The fewer the words, the broader the meaning.’ Season words provide haiku with tone; that is, intellectual and emotional color to embellish contents. Kigo tend to unite and synthesize the elements of words. These elements yield to kaleidoscopic combinations which leap and intertwine among multi-layered mutations in the reader's mind.

source : simplyhaiku/2010/06/24


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quote
The World of Kigo
by Kiyoko Tokutomi

When Kiyoshi and I formed the first English[-language] Haiku Group in San Jose in 1975, the first lesson we taught was about kigo. Because you want to guide the reader to grasp a specific feeling or impression, there should be only one kigo in a haiku. If there are more than one kigo in a haiku, the feelings you wish to convey become obscured or unclear.
And with only 5-7-5 syllables to work with, you will be wasting much of the valuable space within the haiku.
This “kigo-window” works the best if it stays clear.
It takes a lot of practice and polishing to achieve this goal.

source : youngleaves.org

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Matsuo Basho and kigo

In the pre-Meiji era (before 1868), almost all haiku contained a kigo.
For example,

Japanese experts have classified
only about 10 of Matsuo Bashō's  hokku in the miscellaneous (zō) category (out of about 1,000 hokku).

As with most of the pre-Meiji poets, Bashō was primarily a renku poet (that is, he composed linked verse with other poets), so he also wrote plenty of miscellaneous and love stanzas for the interior lines of a renku. Usually about half the stanzas in a renku do not reference a season.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !


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Some thoughts at the beginning of 2008
Gabi Greve

After about four years now struggeling with collecting World Kigo, I think we made good progress and I want to thank all contributors for their great efforts.
The many regional saijiki we could establish within the framework of the database speak for themselves. And the many regional efforts listed otherwise are all big steps to the development of worldwide regional saijiki.

To use "Japanese" kigo outside of Japan brings its problems and should be considered carefully, just as the Japanese had to make considerations when writing "Chinese poetry" during the ages. A butterfly, a beloved Japanese kigo, will always be associated with the Chinese philosoper and poet Chuang Tsu.

To use regional kigo in a responsible way is encouraged by this Database project. To collect regional kigo is up to the regional poets and their efforts to produce a saijiki of their area. It does take a lot of effort, believe me, more than just writing haiku ... I have seen some projects die down simply because of petty infighting among regional poets.

I am glad to see the interest in kigo growing everywhere, even if there are also many voices for "haiku without kigo". Haiku is adapting to the needs of the poets worldwide, so are kigo.

The definition of HAIKU in non-Japanese-language environments is still an open problem that needs to be solved, or maybe left vague and open to personal interpretation !?

Enjoy your Haiku Life 2008!


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Kigo Musings at the end of 2010
by Isabelle Prondzynski

Christmas Eve --
the house roof sparkles
in deep frost

New Year’s Eve --
the sundial sparkles
in deep frost

. . . Kigo Practise


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Kigo and Zooka 造化 (zoka), the creative force
The creative force was an important abstract aspect of hokku since Matsuo Basho.
Kigo, on the other hand, are a real-life tool to be used when composing traditional Japanese hokku and haiku.
. Zooka, zōka 造化 the creative force and Haiku .


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Are kigo just a cliche / cliché ?

cliche : a trite or overused expression or idea.

This question is sometimes asked in ELH discussions.

Kigo that are often used are proof that they are "well liked" and the author of the haiku is in good company with the peers of the genre.
They often refere to situations that naturally turn a person to write poetry, like an autumn sunset, cherry blossoms or a withered branch ...

I think the the problem of becoming a cliche lies in the combination (often called juxtaposition) with the two other lines of the haiku. If they are not fresh and bring a new idea to the situation, the whole haiku might slide into "tsukinami", the most ordinary.


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Haiku is a poem born from a "season word."
Inahata Teiko , Japan

Haiku appreciates nature and our daily life by means of season words.
From the time you wake up till you say "good night" and retire in bed, your daily life at home and at school is filled with pleasant and unpleasant events, things you want to do, affairs with your friends or family members. Your life further includes a comfortable night, or sleepless hours as it is too cold or too hot. Have you ever stopped to think that all these routine affairs keep you closely related to all the vicissitudes on earth that follow the change of seasons?

Have you ever been aware of what nature has in store for your unbiased eyes and heart? Season words symbolize the nature-man relations.
Haiku is a poetry that expresses itself through season words:
this is the second condition of haiku.

It is important that we should pass down the seasonal words which our ancestors chose and formed .
I want you to study the correct meaning of each seasonal word and how to use it appropriately by consulting a saijiki.

©　Inahata Teiko
Invitation to Haiku



History of Japanese Saijiki


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THE IMPORTANCE OF SEASONS
by Charles Trumbull

snip
Arguments against using a season word in haiku are voiced by

(a) people who find it too difficult or artistically limiting to do so,
(b) those who resist the Japanese season-word system because they find it too highly formalized and inappropriate for English poetry,
(c) iconoclasts who want haiku to be whatever they say it is, tradition be damned, or
(d) poets who would really rather be writing senryu or zappai (verses in haiku form that, respectively, treat human nature or are intended as pure slapstick).
But haiku is, after all, nature poetry.

Reprinted from the Haiku World Web site (May 2003)
source : Simply Haiku, October 2010


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The Power of Kigo in different Haiku

In a haiku with only one theme (ichibutsu jitate) the kigo as the hero of the story sets the theme and the two other lines should give further explanations along the line of shasei, sketching from your moment.

In a haiku with a combination of two ideas (toriawase, often translated as juxtaposition), two lines present the theme and the kigo can be changed to set the mood for the scene. You have to choose your kigo carefully from the pool of avaliable options to set the right ambiance. Therefore it is necessary to know as many kigo as possible to choose a suitable one.
You need to choose a kigo that expresses your mood/feeling/atmosphere.
Study (learn by heart) as many kigo as you can while there is time and
use the appropriate one when you need it. The kigo should bring your two other lines "alive". It will carry a certain season as well as a certain mood for your situation.
KIGO are like the basic "vocabulary" you need to study in order to understand and use the "Haiku Language" properly.


MORE
Kireji, the cut in Haiku


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Analyzing the kigo given in a large Japanese saijiki, there was the following distribution:

Astronomy ... 73
Climate ... 94
Geography, Earth ... 43
Human Affairs ... 706
Religion, Observances 357
Animals ... 164
Plants ... 361
Kametaro Yagi


Observances and human affairs do make up a big part of a saijiki!

Ceremonies and Festivals Saijiki

Memorial Days of Famous People, Celebrities Saijiki


my WASHOKU SAIJIKI ... Japanese Food as KIGO


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Read more details about

Juxtaposition, kigo and the CUT in Haiku !


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Quoting Bill Higginson:

Each of the more important seasonal themes has a long history of not just physical associations, but emotional tone as well. The more skilled the haiku poet, the more the poem works with or plays against these associations. A good haikai saijiki (almanac of seasonal topics and season words used in haiku and linked-poetry composition) explains these traditional associations.

For the haiku poet, this list simply represents those few seasonal topics that have deeply engaged Japanese poets for centuries, and, in some cases, for a millennium or more. Such a list can also help poets to know what to look for when they want to write a seasonal poem. In a saijiki, the systematic seasonal ordering of topics serves mainly to collect related phenomena together, and to arrange finished poems in a rational and aesthetically pleasing order.
renku.home.att.net/


and

The rationale behind season words is tradition,
not personal or local experience.
It makes sense to add certain items to a season word list according to local custom, such as holidays, unique cultural features, and particular weather phenomena or creature-behaviors unique to a specific region, provided they are included at times when poets have in fact noticed them and writen about them.

The overriding factor here is that, unless one is in a very distinctly different climatic zone than mid-temperate central Japan, on which the Japanese saijiki is nominally based, and the phenomenon in question is already recorded in a common Japanese saijiki, then *millions of poets* already relate to it that way.

Read the full quote here
. WKD : Bill Higginson
The rationale behind season words




Read more about this important topic here:
WKD : Seasons and Categories


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Nature and Seasonal Words

One of the major differences between English-language haiku and Japanese haiku is the use of the seasonal word (kigo). There are two formal requirements of the hokku, now called haiku: the cutting word, which cuts the 17 syllable hokku in two, and the seasonal word. English-language haiku poets do not use cutting words per se, but they use the equivalent, either in the punctuation (such as a dash), with nouns, or syntax. The effect is very similar to the cutting word, and there have been many good poems that depend on the cutting.
However, there is no equivalent to the seasonal word. In fact, the use of a seasonal word is not a formal requirement in English-language haiku, as it is for most of Japanese haiku.

MORE

. Beyond the Haiku Moment
Haruo Shirane


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The Poetics of Japanese Verse:
Images, Structure, Meter
Kawamoto Koji, 1999

Translations frequently do not, or cannot, convey the structural accomplishments of poetry, but this book reveals some of that underlying beauty through close readings and analysis of haiku and other forms.

The use of old 'waka' words was therefore, not inconsistent with 'haikai's' effort to renovate traditional poetry. The reliance upon classical poetic diction does not mean that 'haiku' was a slave to long-standing conventions. On the contrary, the legitimacy of the 'haiku' as a full-fledged poetic genre was made possible by the existence of a poetic lexicon comprising thoroughly stereotyped expressions evolved over the course of a thousand-year old tradition. Within this tradition, the mere mention of a single word automatically translated into a specific complex of thoughts, emotions, and associations.

The class of words known as 'kigo' or seasonal words, provides the representative example of such poetic diction. ...
However, it was not until after the maturing of 'renga' that artificial 'kigo' classifications systematically and inseparably yoked particular seasons to particular phenomenon ... including those which are not in reality exclusive to a single season. In other words, it was through the discretionary rules of 'renga' that things like the moon, deer, and fog became inextricably linked to autumn.
...
The justifications for these classifications derived from antecedent texts, particularly the dominant tendencies found in works that were widely regarded as superior poems. Here again, concern was not with reality, per se, but with a literary world .. mostly poetic in nature .. and the relative position of a word within a network of traditional literary expressions.
It is true that large numbers of new 'kigo' were established during the age of 'haikai'. Yet even in these instances poets continued to apply the same fundamental crieteria. As a result, any newly established 'kigo' generally remained subject to strong regulating influences of the initial and therefore paradigmatic verses in which they first appeared ... regardless of later changes in reality.
. Reference .


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Up with Season Words
Michael Dylan Welch

As with most things in life, the key to successful haiku lies in finding a balance between extremes.

So, how to find the balance? I’m not sure I have an answer, except to say that the degree to which each individual haiku writer adapts the use of seasonal references into his or her haiku is likely a reflection of the poet's personality, poetic spirit, or deference to Japanese models.

source : Michael Dylan Welch / graceguts


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In 2007 at the HNA meeting, the concept of "personal kigo" has been discussed.
Wheather a personal kigo can be understood and be relevant as kigo for other poets and readers will have to be shown.

For example:
The poet's yearly visit to the dentist every autumn.
The poet's birthday or wedding aniversary.

Birthday (tanjoobi)

...

personal kigo
the same pain
as this time last year

John Stevenson
Upstate Dim Sum -
A Biannual Anthology of Haiku and Senryu

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Calendar reference kigo and time words

A special problem are the Calendar reference kigo, for example the names of each month and then the many festivals of a specific date and the memorial days.
You can add six months to a kigo from the Northern Hemisphere (the most common ones are still the Japanese kigo in this database) to get to its counterpart in the Southern Hemisphere. Some relevant kigo of this kind for the tropics which we covered so far are listed in the Kenya Saijiki.

The name of a month denote a well-defined season of an area, they are even listed in the category of "SEASON" in the Japanese saijiki.
But we must keep in mind that this season varies in each part of the wide world. December in the Northern Hemispere denotes a different season than December in the Southern Hemisphere or the Tropics.


Time words like "evening", "Sunday" are considered Topics for Haiku.

More is here
WKD . Seasons and Categories


Haiku poets from all parts of the world are encouraged to contribute their information about the moods and associations of a calendar reference kigo (for example, name of a month) from their area and a few haiku about it to finetune our understanding of these words in a worldwide poetry and haiku context.
It takes the positive co-operation and effort of all regional haiku poets to help with this calendar reference kigo issue.
And I am sure it can be solved in a positive way.
Please send me your contributions !


For starters, review these explanations for each kigo month of Japan:
(Remember, according to the Asian Lunar Calendar.)
"Haiku in Twelve Months"
Inahata Teiko


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One or more kigo in traditional Japanese haiku ?

"Each haiku is composed of 17 syllables, and the 17 are divided into three groups: five, seven, and five.
We must use one kigo (a symbolic seasonal word) and must not use more than one."
Kyoshi Takahama, a Japanese Haikuist


One kigo in one traditional Japanese haiku is the guideline (yakusokugoto, promise), the "general rule", the advise a Japanese haiku sensei will give his student at the first encounter and keep reminding him afterwards.
(My own experience, passing on the instructions from Michiko sensei:

Write ten years according to the yakusokugoto, then you are able to judge for yourself when not to do so!
But first try to eliminate one of the kigo from your haiku, if your draft has more than one.).

But of course, there are exceptions. Gendai Haiku (Modern Japanese Haiku), Haiku in languages other than Japanese ...
Still for a beginner in the genre in any language, it seems a good piece of advise.

Some kigo are weak, like the butterfly or mosquitoe, which we encounter in many seasons.
Some kigo are strong, like summer, winter, events which occur only once a year and so on.
If two kigo are used in one haiku, one must be strong and the other a weak one to make sure the two kigo do not collide.

To be on the safe side,
only use one kigo in your own haiku and
enjoy the ones with two by the master poets ...
is another piece of advise I often hear in Japan.


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Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac
by William J. Higginson
ISBN 4-7700-2090-2
Kodansha International [Tokyo, New York, London], 1996

Many thanks to Bill Higginson for granting permission to share the following information from the introduction to his modern classic, Haiku World.


POEMS WITH TWO SEASON WORDS

In Japanese as well as English and other languages, one occasionally encounters a poem with two season words. Should that happen, there are three possibilities, resulting in the following placement in this saijiki. Whichever season word dominates the seasonal understanding of a poem, and thus its placement in the saijiki, is said to be the season word of that peom. (I draw examples from the old masters to show that this is not just a modern phenomenon.)

Same season: When both season words relate to topics in the same season, the poem goes under the topic most central to its meaning if there is no conflict between the topics as to the time period within the season. If a time conflict does exist, it will be resolved in favor of the more limited time period. Sample poem:

uguisu o tama ni nemuru ka aoyanagi

with a warbler
for a soul is it sleeping?
graceful willow

Basho

BUSH WARBLER (uguisu) is an all spring topic, but WILLOW (yanagi) is specific to late spring, so the poem belongs under the latter topic. This poem is mainly about the willow, so the placement seems doubly appropriate. Basho changes Chuang-tsu's famous butterfly-dreaming man into a warbler-dreaming tree.


Different seasons, one dominates: When season words relate to topics in different seasons, usually one or the other obviously governs, and the poem will be placed under that topic in its season. Sample:

ogi nite sake kumu kage ya chiru sakura

with a fan
I drink sake in the shade . . .
falling cherry blossoms

Here Basho mimics a noh actor; when the play calls for drinking sake (rice wine, pronounced "sah-kay"), the actor mimes the motions using a closed folding fan as a prop. Since FALLING CHERRY BLOSSOMS (chiru sakura) is not only a topic appropriate to spring but actually happens in spring, the poem is definitely placed in spring. A FAN (ogi), normally a summer seasonal topic, can easily be present at other seasons

harahara to arare furisuguru tsubaki kana

ploppity-plop
the snow pellets come down
on these camellias

Buson

SNOW PELLETS or graupel (arare--often translated as "hail") may fall any time of year, but has long been recognized as a winter seasonal topic. When it is coupled with a topic strongly associated with springtime, such as CAMELLIAS (tsubaki), the poem in question must also find itself in spring. With the camellias, Buson does not have to say "spring snow pellets" (hara no arare), though that is a seasonal topic in its own right. NOTE: These camellias are most likely red.


Different seasons, neither dominates: When season words relate to topics in different seasons and there is no way to say definitively that the experience belongs in one or the other, the poem will be placed under the most appropriate topic in the all-year section. Sample:

tsuki hana ya yonjukunen no muda aruki

moon and blossoms . . .
forty-nine years of
pointless walking

Issa (1762 - 1826)

Though MOON is an autumnal topic and BLOSSOMS belongs to spring, here Issa uses "moon and blossoms" to mean poetry. Rather than preaching to others about art, Issa is mumbling to himself that his life has amounted to nothing but worrying about "moon and blossoms" -- a pointless task. Since the theme of the poem relates to "years" it belongs in the all-year section, under the topic YEAR or YEARS.

Note that most apparent conflicts between a season word and a word or phrase in a poem that might place the poem under a topic in the all-year section of the saijiki resolve in favor of the appropriate seasonal topic.

Bill Higginson
Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac
http://tinyurl.com/6eaob

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Haiku
Handbook: How to Write, Share and Teach Haiku
Excerpts online

Haiku
Handbook: How to Write, Share and Teach Haiku
Glossary about kidai and kigo

William J. Higginson


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"Double Seasonal Words" season word duplication
overlapping kigo
futatsu no kigo 二つの季語 two kigo
ki kasanari, kigasanari 季重なり, kigasane "doubling of seasons"
kizure 季ずれ two kigo of different seasons, to overlap seasons


At the time of Matsuo Basho, two kigo were used more often than nowadays, since three were not so many saijiki in print. The printing of saijiki was just beginning and kigo where added as poets started to write about more things.

　WKD : History of Japanese Saijiki


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Generally speaking, in the case of double kigo one becomes the "leading" kigo, and the other "auxiliary". However, what is important is whether it works or not, whether it enhances the quality of the haiku or not, or at least whether it is an irritant or not.

The rejection of "yamabuki-ya" in favour of "furuike-ya" (the old pond) is an example of Basho's originality and innovative faculty, quite apart from the fact that the former would have constituted kigasanari (season word duplication), which probably would not have mattered at that time.

Susumu Takiguchi, WHR 05
worldhaikureview.org/5-1/

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Q: Is this a double kigo??

A: yes. but the presence of two kigo is not always a fatal error. double kigo should be avoided when they contradict each other or when they constitute redundancy. in some cases, one is subordinate to the other. it's often a matter of judgement. in order to avoid the effort of making the judgement, many people avoid using two kigo in the same haiku altogether.

timothy (Peshtigo) russell, SHIKI archives 2000


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Kigo and Seasonal Reference:
Cross‑cultural Issues in Anglo‑American Haiku
By Richard Gilbert

http://research.iyume.com/kigo/kigo-cross-cultural-issues.htm


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The use of words: season words, keywords . Banya Natsuishi


Seasoning Your Haiku
Ferris Gilli / WHCschools 2001


List of Season Words, from The SHIKI Haiku Salon


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古季語と遊ぶ Ko Kigo to Asobu
古い季語・珍しい季語の実作体験記

Enjoy Old Kigo !
By Uda Kiyoko, 2007


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Launching of WHCworldkigo 2004


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(C) Photo by Andrea D`Alessandro
WKD : german-kiyose

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. Kigo, a Key to Japanese Culture:
An Interview with Gabi Greve, Japan
Robert D. Wilson, Interviewer
from　Simply Haiku, Winter 2009, vol 7 no 4 　


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Millikin University Haiku Writer Profile
William J. Higginson


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External LINKS in Japanese

季語歳時記 - Kigosai - 5000季語の検索サイト
source : kigosai.sub.jp

水牛歳時記
source : sogyusha.org


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. haiku and kigo used as topics for haiku ! .


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