158 years ago today, Masaoka Shiki, considered one of Japan’s four masters of haiku, was born. He wrote more than 20,000 stanzas of this famous Japanese short-form poetry, keeping the traditional ‘season words’ and the 5-7-5 syllable structure, but bringing in a dedication to realism that had seemed in through Western literature. Shiki may be credited with salvaging traditional short-form Japanese poetry and carving out a niche for it in the modern Meiji period. READ some of his verse… (1867)

Born into the late Meiji Period, Shiki entered into Japanese literary circles at a time when haiku and tanka poetry were already significantly in decline. Literates believed they were out of touch with the advancements of the Meiji Restoration.

In 1892, the same year he dropped out of university,

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