These Japanese cities may inspire your next haiku

Some commuters nap, others doomscroll. But on trams in the Japanese city of Matsuyama, passengers have another option: Write a haiku.

Matsuyama is the self-proclaimed capital of this centuries-old, short-form poetry, traditionally (though not exclusively) created using three lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Hop on the city’s trundling trams and you’ll find rectangular haiku mailboxes, each with a slot at the top. Passengers are encouraged to pen a haiku on a provided sheet of paper and slip it into the mailbox for consideration in the city’s haiku competitions. And in the evening, you could stop by one of Matsuyama’s haiku bars, crafting poems with drink in hand.

What we now call haiku originally existed as the opening stanza of longer poems, until 17th-century poets such as Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) popularized their use as either short, standalone poems (then called hokku) or as accompaniments to prose—a style known as haibun. In Basho’s case, he would often incorporate haiku in travelogues.

Several centuries on, haiku is studied in Japanese schools, celebrated through national competitions, and promoted on TV in weekly shows.

But this traditional Japanese pastime has also gone global, with haiku societies as far and wide as Africa and North America. There’s even an International Haiku Poetry Day on April 17, organized by the Haiku Foundation.

Here’s how to follow the haiku trail in the country where it was born.

What is a haiku?

This illustration of Matsuo Basho, the 17th-century master of haiku, is by the renowned artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). In Japan, many of Basho’s short poems are reproduced on monuments and historic buildings.

Illustration By Katsushika Hokusai, via History / Bridgeman Images

As Julie Bloss Kelsey writes in the Haiku Foundation’s New to Haiku column, modern-day haiku has developed beyond traditional confines.

“In Japanese, haiku is written in 17 on, or sound units. On don’t translate directly into English-language syllables. Some haiku scholars believe this misconception has led to English-language haiku that are too wordy,” she says. “This is why you often see modern haiku with a syllable count of less than 17. Haiku can be written with one, two, three, four, or more lines. Although three-line English-language haiku have historically been most common, one-line haiku, or monoku, are growing in popularity.”

(Follow in the steps of samurai on this ancient Japanese trail.)

That’s not the only change since Basho’s days. While haiku typically contain a seasonal word (or kigo in Japanese), they don’t just have to be about ephemeral cherry blossoms or autumnal leaves. Human emotion, life’s little moments, or a beloved chihuahua are equally good subjects. Likewise, a haiku can channel melancholy, humor, and many things between.

One of Japan’s oldest bathhouses, Dogo Onsen Honkan in Matsuyama has a haiku box where people can deposit their own poems.

Photograph By Seonjae Kang

Best places to experience haiku

Traveling around Japan today, it’s not uncommon to encounter haiku in some form or other. Several sites boast a link to one of the “big four” poets of the haiku world: Yosa Buson (1716-1784), Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), and, the most famous of all, Basho.

Basho wandered the Tohoku region, in the north of Japan’s main island, on a five-month trek documented in the classic haiku-punctuated travelogue Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North). You can follow in his sandal-clad footsteps to the mountainside temple of Yamadera, where the tranquil wooded trail inspired Basho to write one of his most celebrated poems:

stillness
the cries of cicada
sink into the rocks

Also in Tohoku, you could visit the town of Hiraizumi, inspiration for Basho’s mournful, “summer grass / all that’s left / of ancient warriors’ dreams.” But there’s a lot more left to Hiraizumi than green fields, including the UNESCO-listed Chusonji Temple and its golden Konjikido hall.

A painted fan by 18th-century artist Yosa Buson illustrates an episode from the haiku poet Basho’s travelogue, Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North).

Image By Yosa Buson, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Elsewhere in Japan, there’s the Basho Museum in the once rural part of eastern Tokyo that Basho called home—now within the urban sprawl of Tokyo’s central 23 wards. There are other Basho Museums: in his birthplace in Iga-Ueno, in Mie prefecture; and in towns along his Oku no Hosomichi route. Basho really did get around.

Then there’s Matsuyama, Japan’s haiku capital. Located on the smallest of the country’s four main islands, Matsuyama was the birthplace of Masaoka Shiki, who, before dying of tuberculosis at just 34 in 1902, coined the term haiku (meaning “word play”) and injected new life into the art by encouraging broader subject matter and the use of nontraditional language. He even wrote the first baseball haiku:

summer grass
baseball players far off
in the distance

You can’t spend a day in Matsuyama without noticing the haiku connections. As well as on trams, you’ll find a haiku box at the hilltop castle and by the Dogo Onsen Honkan, one of Japan’s oldest bathhouses—in case a haiku comes to mind while having a soak. Matsuyama has also set up haiku boxes in sister cities overseas, including Brussels, Belgium; Freiburg, Germany; and Taipei, Taiwan.