haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering! 5th April 2025

haikaiTALKS: Buried and Crossed Alliteration | a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

host: Srinivasa Sambangi

5th April 2025

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

Your host for haikaiTALKS: Srinivas Sambangi

haikaiTALKS 5th April 2025

Buried and Crossed Alliteration:

We have been discussing about alliteration for the past one month. I know it’s very difficult to write haiku using the same literary device every week. So, I will cover the remaining two categories of alliteration this week and move on to another topic next week. 5th and 6th type of alliterations we discuss this week are buried and crossed alliteration.

My principal source of this write-up is the book Japanese Haiku – Its Essential Nature and History by Kenneth Yasuda.

As per Merriam Webster dictionary alliteration means “the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables”

Alliteration occupies a special place in haiku. The language of alliteration is gentle compared to the language of rhyme. Alliteration can be broadly categorised into six classifications: initial, stressed, syllable, oblique, buried and crossed alliteration.

This week we will focus on buried and crossed alliterations.

Buried Alliteration

Let’s summarise the four alliterations we discussed so far. In initial alliteration two or more words have the same consonant at the start of the word, it can be accented or unaccented. In stressed alliteration, we have two or more words with the same consonant that is stressed. Syllable alliteration has same syllables in two or more words. Oblique alliteration has two or more words with the same first consonant and different second consonants.

Let’s move on to buried alliteration. Buried alliteration deals with the same consonant or consonants, one or more of which are buried within words in close conjunction

Examples:

Flowered is her hem,

Ankle-deep in daffodils

As she gathers them.

—   Shoson

In this example, the d forms part of a buried alliteration in flowered, deep, and daffodils; and the th in gather and them.

mud roads in monsoon

    women lift their saris

knee-high

    Kala Ramesh

The d is part of buried alliteration in mud and roads, n in monsoon and women

thinning audience

at my poetry reading

friends reunion

     Kalyanee Arandhara

Notice the n in thinning, audience, reading, friends and reunion

village well

a bulldozer buries

the women's gossip

      Srinivasa Rao Sambangi (Under the Basho, 2024)

ll in village, well and bulldozer forms the buried alliteration

Crossed Alliteration

Crossed alliteration is the most complex type of all; in it sets of letters, whether initial or buried, are Iinked or crossed with each other in words close together.

Look at the pattern in the following example:

Stones and trees that meet

My eyes glare straight at me

In this glazing heat

                            —Kyorai

Please note the sets of letter st and gla are crossed. You may also note that this poem has stressed alliteration as well. We have two consonants at the beginning of two words, st in stones and straight and gl in glaze and glare.

Warm the weather grows

Gradually as one plum flower

After another blows

                        —Ransetsu

In the above example, w and th are crossed

This ends the discussion on alliteration. Hope you enjoyed it. We have noticed that some poems written by us as a part of this exercise have many types of alliteration. While the rhythm of the poem greatly improves by alliteration, too much of it will divert our attention from the essence of haiku. We need to be careful about it

This week, please quote some examples of yours or other poets which have buried or/and crossed alliteration. You may try to write a new poem as well. You may wish to give a note how it’s a buried or crossed alliteration and mention if your poem has other alliterations as well

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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. 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!

Dear Members,

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

We are continuing haikaiTALKS in a grand way!

Keep writing and commenting! _kala