is a prosimetric literary form originating in Japan, combining

prose Prose is language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...

and

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

. 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, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

diary A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable 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 digita ...

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 (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

prose poem Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form while otherwise deferring to poetic devices to make meaning. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associated with poetry. However, it make ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single 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 old ...

and

travel journal The genre of travel literature or travelogue encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. History Early examples of travel literature include the ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' (generally considered a 1s ...

History

The term "''haibun''" was first used by the 17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, 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 , translated as ''The Narrow Road to the Deep North'' and ''The Narrow Road to the Interior'', is a major work of ''haibun'' by the List of Japanese language poets, Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, considered one of the major texts of Japanese liter ...

'' (''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,Shirane, Haruo. ''Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900.'' Columbia University Press, 2008. . p553 Kobayashi IssaUeda, Makoto. ''Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa''. Brill, 2004. . p. 15 and Masaoka Shiki.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 that has gained momentum in recent years.Yuasa, Nobuyuki in "Judges' Comments" in Yuasa and Gill, 2011 p43 In the Haiku Society of America 25th anniversary book of its history, ''A Haiku Path'', Elizabeth Lamb noted that the first English-language ''haibun'', titled "Paris," was published in 1964 by Canadian writer Jack Cain. However, an earlier example is Carolyn Kizer's "A Month in Summer," an extended haibun with 21 haiku and one tanka, published in 1962. Her piece (identified as a haibun) first appeared in ''Kenyon Review.'' James Merrill's "Prose of Departure", from ''The Inner Room'' (1988), is a later example.

John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

also included several experiments with haibun in his 1984 collection ''A Wave''. 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. Anita Virgil won first prize, and honorable mentions (in alphabetical order) went to Sydney Bougy, David Cobb, and John Stevenson. 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's ''Journey to the Interior: American Versions of Haibun'' (Tuttle), published in 1998. Jim Kacian 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 Jim Kacian, Bruce Ross, Mark Nowak, John Richard Parsons, Sheila Murphy, Roberta Beary, Lew Watts, Rich Youmans (these last three the authors of ''Haibun: A Writer's Guide''), 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 feminist academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered groundbreaking in the field of quee ...

, 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