is the opening stanza of a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese orthodox collaborative linked poem, renga

Renga

' is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two or stanzas, usually many more. The opening stanza of the renga, called the , became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry....

, or of its later derivative, renku (haikai no renga). From the time of Matsuo Bashō

Matsuo Basho

, born , then , was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as a master of brief and clear haiku...

 (1644–1694), the hokku began to appear as an independent poem, and was also incorporated in haibun

Haibun

Haibun is a literary composition that combines prose and haiku. The range of haibun is broad and includes, but is not limited to, the following forms of prose: autobiography, biography, diary, essay, history, prose poem, short story and travel literature....

 (in combination with prose), and haiga

Haiga

' is a style of Japanese painting based on the aesthetics of haikai, from which haiku poetry derives, which often accompanied such poems in a single piece. Like the poetic forms it accompanied, haiga was based on simple, yet often profound, observations of the everyday world...

 (in combination with a painting). In the late 19th century, Masaoka Shiki

Masaoka Shiki

, pen-name of Masaoka Noboru , was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry...

 (1867-1902), renamed the stand-alone hokku to haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

, and the latter term is now generally applied retrospectively to all hokku appearing independently of renku or renga, irrespective of when they were written, although this approach has been challenged. The term 'hokku' continues to be used in its original sense, as the opening verse of a linked poem.

Content

Within the traditions of renga and renku, the hokku, as the opening verse of the poem, has always held a special position. It was traditional for the most honoured guest at the poetry-writing session to be invited to compose it, and he would be expected to offer praise to his host and/or deprecate himself (often symbolically), while superficially referring to current surroundings and season. (The following verse fell to the host, who would respond with a compliment to the guest, again usually symbolically).

Form

Typically, a hokku is 17 mora

Mora (linguistics)

Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...

s (or onji

Onji

On is Japanese for "sound". It is used to mean the phonetic units counted in haiku, tanka and other such poetic forms. Known as "morae" to English-speaking linguists, the modern Japanese term for the linguistic concept is hyōon moji ....

) in length, composed of three metrical units of 5, 7 and 5 moras respectively. Alone among the verses of a poem, the hokku includes a kireji

Kireji

is the term for a special category of words used in certain types of Japanese traditional poetry. It is regarded as a requirement in traditional haiku, as well as in the hokku, or opening verse, of both classical renga and its derivative renku . There is no exact equivalent of kireji in English,...

or 'cutting-word' which appears at the end of one of its three metrical units. A Japanese hokku is traditionally written in a single vertical line.

English-language hokku

Paralleling the development of haiku in English

Haiku in English

Haiku in English is a development of the Japanese haiku poetic form in the English language.Contemporary haiku are written in many languages, but most poets outside of Japan are concentrated in the English-speaking countries....

, poets writing renku in Western languages nowadays seldom adhere to a 5-7-5 syllable format for the hokku, or other chōku ('long verses'), of their poem. The salutative requirement of the traditional hokku is often disregarded, but the hokku is still typically required to include a kigo

Kigo

is a word or phrase associated with a particular season, used in Japanese poetry. Kigo are used in the collaborative linked-verse forms renga and renku, as well as in haiku, to indicate the season referred to in the stanza...

 (seasonal word or phrase), and to reflect the poet's current environment.

Example

Bashō composed the following hokku in 1689 during his journey through Oku (the Interior), while writing renku in the house of an official in Sukagawa:

ふうりうの初やおくの田植うた

fūryū no hajime ya oku no taueuta

beginnings of poetry—

the rice planting songs

of the Interior

(trans. Shirane)

Having heard the field workers singing as they planted rice in his host's fields, Bashō composed this hokku so that it complimented his host on the elegance of his home and region, by associating it with the historical "beginnings" (hajime) of poetic art, while suggesting his joy and gratitude at the opportunity to compose renku for the "first time" (hajime) in the Interior.