Kigo - Must Haiku Include A Kigo?

Must Haiku Include A Kigo?

In the pre-Meiji era (before 1868), almost all haiku contained a kigo. For example, Japanese experts have classified only about 10 of Matsuo Bashō's (1644-1694) hokku in the miscellaneous (zō) category (out of about 1,000 hokku). As with most of the pre-Meiji poets, Bashō was primarily a renku poet (that is, he composed linked verse with other poets), so he also wrote plenty of miscellaneous and love stanzas for the interior lines of a renku. Usually about half the stanzas in a renku do not reference a season.

The Meiji era poet Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902), who recommended several major reforms to the writing of hokku and tanka, including an expansion in subject matter and vocabulary, still included kigo in his revision of hokku, which he renamed haiku. Experts have classified a few hundred of Shiki's haiku in the miscellaneous category (out of the few thousand that he wrote). His follower Takahama Kyoshi, who was the most influential haiku poet in the generation after Shiki, also emphasized kigo. In the early part of the 20th century, there were a number of Japanese poets, such as Kawahigashi Hekigoto, Ogiwara Seisensui, Noguchi Yonejiro, Taneda Santōka, Ozaki Hōsai, Nakatsuka Ippekirō, and Ban'ya Natsuishi who were less concerned about some traditions of haiku such as the inclusion of kigo. Some, like Hekigoto and Seisensui, actively opposed the insistence on kigo, but even they often included kigo in their haiku.

Most Japanese and many western haiku written today still follow tradition by including a kigo. Many haiku groups and editors of haiku publications insist that haiku include a kigo. For some haiku traditionalists, anything that does not have a kigo is something else, either senryū (comic haikai) or zappai (miscellaneous haikai). Until a few modern saijiki added the miscellaneous category, no seasonless haiku would have been included as examples in saijiki, which are the major references for haiku poets in Japan.

There are some reformers who have made suggestions such as using the idea of keywords (which would include kigo as a subset). Keywords are words such as dawn, birthday cake, ocean wave, beggar or dog, with strong associations, but which are not necessarily associated with a particular season. Birds that do not migrate, such as pigeons or sparrows, are additional examples of non-seasonal keywords.