【Update 2024-10-29: This is an outdated version of this article. For a more up to date version, please see: https://laspina.org/follow-the-moon-traveling-to-an-inn-a-haiku-journey/ 】

月ぞしるべこなたへ入らせ旅の宿
tsuki zo shirube konata e irase tabi no yado

the moon’s guidance:
please come this way
a traveler’s inn
—Basho

(trans. David LaSpina)

Kawase Hasui - Rain at Maekawa in Sagami Province

This is my first post in what I hope will be a daily haiku post. Before moving to Japan I thought haiku were pretentious and somewhat silly. It seemed to me the entire point was to count syllables and therefore anything could be a haiku.

How pointless it is
anything can be haiku
if you can count well

After arriving here however and seeing real haiku poems, I fell in love. These are nothing like the mindless crap that passes for haiku in the US. The best of them paint a scene in your mind just as well as any painter could do. They suggest enough that your mind can fill in the details and transport you there.

I will be sharing some of my favorites here as well as any that I come across a just like. I have many haiku books, so I won't run out anytime soon. Translations are usually my own, but I will note the translator when I use someone else's translation.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for this series.

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.