Japanese haikus, those mesmerising 17-syllable poems, have fascinated the West since the nineteenth century. We start the National Poetry Month by paying tribute to haikus with a poetry tree, complete with origami cranes.
Originally a part of the 5-line poem tanka, the haiku almost always contains the name of the season, or a key word with which to infer the season. This short-cut method allows the reader to immediately comprehend the weather, the foliage, the animal life, and the emotions that go with the season in question. More than a statement of feeling or a picture of nature, a haiku connects two seemingly different things and creates an implied identity between them.
Remember also that Friday, April 1st, is Jeans Day. A small donation will let you wear jeans that day, and the money raised will go to buy socks for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
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