is a prosimetric literary form originating in Japan, combining

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

and

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...

. The range of ''haibun'' is broad and frequently includes

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

diary A diary is a written or audiovisual record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital. A personal ...

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

prose poem Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associat ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

and

travel journal The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern period ...

History

The term "''haibun''" was first used by the 17th-century Japanese poet

Matsuo Bashō 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 the greatest ma ...

, in a letter to his disciple Kyorai in 1690.Shirane, Haruo. ''Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Bashō''. Stanford University Press, 1998. . p212 Bashō was a prominent early writer of ''haibun'', then a new genre combining classical prototypes, Chinese prose genres and vernacular subject matter and language. He wrote some ''haibun'' as travel accounts during his various journeys, the most famous of which is ''

Oku no Hosomichi ''Oku no Hosomichi'' (, originally ), translated as ''The Narrow Road to the Deep North'' and ''The Narrow Road to the Interior'', is a major work of ''haibun'' by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, considered one of the major texts of Japanese l ...

'' (''Narrow Road to the Interior''). Bashō's shorter ''haibun'' include compositions devoted to travel and others focusing on character sketches, landscape scenes, anecdotal vignettes and occasional writings written to honor a specific patron or event. His ''Hut of the Phantom Dwelling'' can be classified as an essay while, in ''Saga Nikki'' (''Saga Diary''), he documents his day-to-day activities with his disciples on a summer retreat. Traditional ''haibun'' typically took the form of a short description of a place, person or object, or a diary of a journey or other series of events in the poet's life. ''Haibun'' continued to be written by later ''haikai'' poets such as

Yosa Buson was a Japanese poet and painter of the Edo period. Along with Matsuo Bashō and Kobayashi Issa, Buson is considered among the greatest poets of the Edo Period. He is also known for completing haiga as a style of art, working with haibun prose ...

,Shirane, Haruo. ''Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900.'' Columbia University Press, 2008. . p553

Kobayashi Issa was a Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest of the Jōdo Shinshū. He is known for his haiku poems and journals. He is better known as simply , a pen name meaning Cup-of-teaBostok 2004. (lit. "one up oftea"). He is regarded as one of the four ...

Ueda, Makoto. ''Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa''. Brill, 2004. . p. 15 and

Masaoka Shiki , pen-name of Masaoka Noboru (正岡升), 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, credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during ...

.Ross, Bruce. "North American Versions of Haibun and Postmodern American Culture" in Hakutani, Yoshinobu, ed. ''Postmodernity and Cross-Culturalism.'' Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2002. . p169

In English

''Haibun'' is no longer confined to Japan, and has established itself as a genre in world literatureYuasa, Nobuyuki in the preface to Yuasa, Nobuyuki and Stephen Gill, eds. ''Kikakuza Haibun Contest: Decorated Works 2009-2011.'' Book Works Hibiki, 2011. . p. 5 which has gained momentum in recent years.Yuasa, Nobuyuki in "Judges' Comments" in Yuasa and Gill, 2011 p43 In the

Haiku Society of America The Haiku Society of America is a non-profit organization composed of haiku poets, editors, critics, publishers and enthusiasts that promotes the composition and appreciation of haiku in English. Founded in 1968, it is the largest society dedicat ...

25th anniversary book of its history, ''A Haiku Path'', Elizabeth Lamb noted that the first true English-language ''haibun'', titled "Paris," was published in 1964 by Canadian writer Jack Cain.

James Merrill James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for ''Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyri ...

's "Prose of Departure", from ''The Inner Room'' (1988), is a later example. The first contest for English-language ''haibun'' took place in 1996, organized by poet and editor Michael Dylan Welch, and judged by Tom Lynch and

Cor van den Heuvel Cor Van den Heuvel (born March 6, 1931) is an American haiku poet, editor and archivist. Biography Van den Heuvel was born in Biddeford, Maine, and grew up in Maine and New Hampshire. He lives on Long Island near his niece and still spends time w ...

. Anita Virgil won first prize, and David Cobb won second prize. The contest resulted in the publication of ''Wedge of Light'' (Press Here) in 1999. As credited by Welch, the first anthology of English-language ''haibun'' was

Bruce Ross Bruce Ross is a Canadian American poet, author, philosopher, humanities educator and past president of the Haiku Society of America. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario. Ross has taught Japanese poetry (in translation) and painting forms for many ...

's ''Journey to the Interior: American Versions of Haibun'' (Tuttle), published in 1998.

Jim Kacian James Michael Kacian (born July 26, 1953) is an American haiku poet, editor, publisher, and public speaker. He has lived in London, Nashville, Bridgton (Maine) and now resides in Winchester, Virginia. Life and brief chronology Kacian was born ...

and Bruce Ross edited the inaugural number of the annual anthology ''American Haibun & Haiga'' (Red Moon Press) in 1999; that series, which continues to this day, changed its name to ''Contemporary Haibun'' in 2003 and sponsored the parallel creation in 2005 of ''Contemporary Haibun Online'', a quarterly journal that added Welsh ''haibun'' author Ken Jones to the founding editorial team of Kacian and Ross.

Characteristics

A ''haibun'' may record a scene, or a special moment, in a highly descriptive and objective manner or may occupy a wholly fictional or dream-like space. The accompanying haiku may have a direct or subtle relationship with the prose and encompass or hint at the gist of what is recorded in the prose sections. Several distinct schools of English ''haibun'' have been described, including ''Reportage narrative mode'' such as Robert Wilson's ''Vietnam Ruminations'', ''Haibunic prose'', and the ''Templum effect''. Contemporary practice of ''haibun'' composition in English is continually evolving. Generally, a ''haibun'' consists of one or more paragraphs of prose written in a concise, imagistic ''haikai'' style, and one or more haiku. However, there may be considerable variation of form, as described by editor and practitioner Jeffrey Woodward. Modern English-language ''haibun'' writers (aka, practitioners) include

Mark Nowak Mark Nowak is an American poet, as well as cultural critic, playwright and essayist, from Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at ...

John Richard Parsons John Richard Parsons (born 7 May 1941) is an English writer and artist, noted for his prize-winning haiku poetry. He taught etching and lithography at Central Saint Martins school of art from 1962 to 1968. His art and sculpture are both figurati ...

Sheila Murphy Sheila E. Murphy (born 1951 in Mishawaka, Indiana) is an American text and visual poet who has been writing and publishing since 1978. She is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award for her book ''Letters to Unfinished J''. Green Integer Press ...

, Nobuyuki Yuasa,Yuasa and Gill, 2011 pp71-76 Lynne Reese, Peter Butler,

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (; May 2, 1950 – April 12, 2009) was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory ( queer studies), and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered groundbreaking in the fiel ...

, and David Cobb, founder of the British Haiku Society in 1990 and author of ''Spring Journey to the Saxon Shore,'' a 5,000-word haibun which has been considered seminal for the English form of kikōbun (i.e., travel diary).Haiku International Association, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Symposium, January 2014.

References

External links

Shorter Haibun examples
{{Authority control Japanese literature Haikai forms Japanese literary terminology

History

In English

Characteristics

See also

References

External links