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Haiku in Germnay
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- In German poetry Haiku is quite unfamiliar as in most other non-Japanese cultures.
If people ask me how a Haiku should be like and I am citing one, most of them will answer spontaneously: “What, is that all ?”
- Haiku possesses very little affinity with what a German is regarding to be a poem: it has no rhyme,
- no rigid order of stressed and unstressed syllables, the language is not always
poetical, it is lacking the great “gesture” and it hardly speaks about mood and sentiments. One will look for metaphors in vain and above all: Haiku rarely explain the world. But we are used to
and expect that from our German poets, we think it has to be that way. This is one of the biggest traps for German Haiku poets: very often we can find the pattern that the first two lines describe
something and in the third line things are explained, interpreted, summarized and teachings are given. Due to the shortness of the Haiku one tends to link with something very popular in German
literature: the aphorism. Many, many German Haiku follow this tradition of interpretation and explanation. Just describing something without presenting an own viewpoint seems to be
insufficient to many German Haiku poets.
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- About more than 100 years ago the Haiku found its way to Germany through the French Japonism. First it was
limited to very few poetic attempts in the 20ies and 30ies of the last century, especially by the very popular German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
- In the year 1962 Imma von Bodmershof – an Austrian lady – published a book named “Haiku” and we can
designate her to be really the first German speaking Haiku poetess. In her publications she sticked firmly to the 5-7-5 metric pattern, it became nearly a religious dogma for her. As a consequence
German, Austrian and Swiss poets felt strictly obliged to keep the 17 syllables and regarded it as an important condition and many of them still do so today.
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- For a long time it was absolutely unthinkable in the German Haiku Society (Deutsche Haiku-Gesellschaft - DHG) to
accept a poem with less than 17 syllables. Similarly people were looking for a word indicating a season (Kigo) or mostly a reference to nature. Thus the Haiku was classified as a poem of nature.
Poems which did not correspond to these rigid criteria were ranked as Senryu in a derogatory way with the remark: “Oh, this is only a Senryu”. There are many members in the German Haiku Society
who were and are still regarding these criteria as being of paramount importance.
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- My permanent and insisting advice that less syllables very often make a better Haiku are slowly bearing fruit. The
stage of experimenting what can be all done with Haiku in German language has only just begun. Obviously Haiku has still an outsider position in the literary life in German speaking countries.
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- Haiku are published in the quarterly magazine of the German Haiku Society, whereas we have not yet found the right
way of making a selection. Currently we are publishing all poems which are sent to us by the members (max. 3 for each person). But we are not satisfied with this procedure, there is a great
hesitation to make a choice since there are no standardized quality norms yet; David Cobb also pointed out this issue. For the majority of the members of the German Haiku Society the Internet does
not play a very important role yet; the homepage of the society is mostly visited by interested people from outside, not by members themselves.
- Beside the website of the DHG there is another homepage from a publishing company in Hamburg (Hamburger Haiku-Verlag),
they also offer Haiku workshops and their Internet site “Haiku heute – Haiku today” represents a more experimental direction of Haiku. David Cobb has also mentioned this direction in his speech.
- Already in the years ot the 80th. the publishing house Graphikum-Verlag in Göttingen has been editing haiku and tanka. Unfortunately the owner
ceased the publishing work. Now there is the Hamburger Haiku-Verlag and other small publishers who deal with haiku.
- Most important for the vital work of the DHG is the existence of regional groups in Halle/Magdeburg, Frankfurt, Ahlen, Cologne and in Austria.
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- In 2004 the Hamburger Haiku-Verlag organized a competition in two categories: “traditional”, i.e. in 5-7-5 style and referring to a season.
the following haiku were chosen as winners:
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- “Traditional”
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- Treasure in the garden pond -
hidden in a string of beads
toad's children.
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- Monika Hermann
My shadow's hurrying
on long stilts over the field -
December sun
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- Winfried Benkel
Glinting small eyes
between the leaves of a tree -
gone is the cherry!
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- Susanne Kruse
The weather deposited
banks of fog. The spire
has sat down on them.
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- Annerose Kellner
Scorching heat
Two umbrellas waiting patiently
at the doctor's
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- Ruth Franke
Don't be afraid, beetle.
You are first, you've got
the longer way.
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- Ernst Ferstl
- Free style
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- Alone -
her winter quilt
still on mine
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- Jörg Rakowski
Crowded train.
She paints a heart
on the misted pane.
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- Udo Wenzel
In the pets' corner
a pond with frogs
shall I really ...
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- Roswitha Erler
In the staircase
your smile
already up
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- Gerd Börner
Street party -
all laughing the child
with the bald head
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- Gerd Börner
April shower -
In the hall of the job centre
silence all about
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- Jochen Hahn-Klimroth