haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering!11th January 2025

haikaiTALKS: Integrating Our Skills | a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

host: Srinivasa Sambangi

11th January 2025

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

Your host for haikaiTALKS: Srinivas Sambangi

jo ha kyū 

jo ha kyū is a Japanese aesthetic originated in gagaku. Gagaku literally means “elegant music” and it’s a type of Japanese classical music that was historically used for imperial court music and dances. It’s used to modulate and move through a variety of actions. The current interpretation of jo ha kyū can be roughly translated as “beginning/opening, break/progression, and rapid/climax”

jo ha kyū is a simple progression to move from the micro-movements of the start, progression and termination of each breath of the performer to the micro-shifts in modulation. Although it’s primarily applied to theatrical and temporal arts today, it used to relate to literature, especially to the shift and link of renga/renku.

All renku has the jo-ha-kyū structure.

Renku has many other forms of varying lengths (as short as 12 verses and as long as 100 and even 1,000 verses), most of which have prescribed positions for flower and moon verses, and other tonal, seasonal, and structural requirements.

I'm giving you the example of a Kasen, which has 36 verses.

It goes as:

Jō: The introduction, which has six verses

Ha: The middle section, or body, which has twenty-four verses

Kyū: The conclusion, which has six verses

While it requires a lot more reading to understand jo ha kyū, let’s use its literal meaning of “beginning, breaking or developing, and rushing to an end” to write a haiku. Often we do not write a haiku keeping a technique or aesthetic in mind but they turn out to meet one or more of the techniques and aesthetics. Please look back at your own haiku or other’s published haiku which you feel meets this aesthetic and post the same. You may also wish to write a new haiku or edit your pre-written haiku using jo ha kyū 

Example:

gentle wind

ripe mangoes one by one

straighten the branch

              -Srinivasa Rao Sambangi

gentle wind – jo (beginning), the wind starts moving

ripe mangoes one by one (falling) – ha (progression), as the mangoes are swept by the wind they started falling one by one

straighten the branch – kyū (climax), as all the mangoes fallen, the bent branch straightens

References:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/juxta/juxta-2-1/jo-ha-kyu-and-fu-bi-xing/

https://whrarchives.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/a-brief-introduction-to-renku-composition/

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KIGO WORDS

Shall we please try to include a kigo word in all the poems we share here?

Give the season and the word—under your poem. 

I'm quoting Lev Hart's request here: "This week’s goal is to compose two verses with toriawase, blending wabi, sabi, karumi, mono no aware, and/or yugen. Tell us which aesthetic concepts you mean to express in a line below the verse. (Two lines is too many.)  Strive for originality. Avoid stock phrases and shopworn images."

For seasonal references, please check these lists:

“A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods,” by Jane Reichhold:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/7fb6654a1dfd1afef97369da920530f8.pdf

indian subcontinent SAIJIKI:

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words:

http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html

The World Kigo Database:

https://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com/

The Yuki Teikei Haiku Season Word List:

https://yths.org/season-word-list/

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Thank you for this post, Srinivas.

I hope our poets take the challenge and create a haiku on these lines!

Poets,

Please give your feedback on others' commentary and poems too. _()_

We are continuing haikaiTALKS!

Keep writing and commenting! _kala