Regional Haiku Histories — Iyo, Shinano, Kaga, Kitakyūshū, Owari, Izumo

Lands as “Haiku Towns”

The 400 years of haiku are usually told with the center (Edo → Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka) as the axis, but in fact distinctive haiku traditions took root in each region. These places each:

• Produced influential poets
• Hold their own journals, meetings, and schools
• Compose local landscape, food, and events with a distinct seasonal feel

Such “haiku towns” form the center-region haiku ecosystem within modern Japanese culture. Six of these lands are traced below.

Iyo Matsuyama — Home of Shiki, Kyoshi, Hekigotō

Iyo Matsuyama (Matsuyama, Ehime) is the most important regional city in haiku history. All three centers of the Meiji haiku revolution — Masaoka Shiki, Takahama Kyoshi, Kawahigashi Hekigotō — were from Matsuyama. An astonishing concentration; today the city builds a tourism brand as “Matsuyama, the town of haiku.”

Matsuyama and Haiku in Three Stages

1. Edo era — Haikai spread as an education of the Matsuyama-han samurai class; especially Kurita Chodō (1749-1814) established the late-18th-century Matsuyama haiku circle
2. Meiji era — Matsuyama Middle School (now Matsuyama-Higashi High School) produced Shiki, Kyoshi, and Hekigotō, who moved to the center
3. The present — Host city of the “Haiku Kōshien” (from 1998); the Shiki Memorial Museum and Shiki-dō (Matsuyama City) are tourism hubs

Shiki and Matsuyama

During Shiki’s long stay in Matsuyama for illness around 1895 (Meiji 28), he took Natsume Sōseki in as a lodger at his residence (Gudabutsu-an, later destroyed) and organized Matsuyama’s haiku circle. This became the seed of the Shōfū-kai and the direct origin of the Matsuyama haiku tradition.

Modern Matsuyama has several high schools active in haiku — Matsuyama-Higashi, Matsuyama-Minami, Matsuyama-Chūō, Uwajima-Higashi — and they reach top places at the Haiku Kōshien every year.

Matsuyama’s Haiku Sites

• Shiki Memorial Museum — near Shiroyama Park
• Shiki-dō (within Shōshō-ji) — rebuilt from Shiki’s residence Gudabutsu-an
• Shiki no Michi — sites of Shiki’s youth in the castle town
• Dōgo Onsen main building — the hot spring loved by Shiki and Sōseki, with haiku throughout

Shinano Kashiwabara — Home of Kobayashi Issa

Shinano Kashiwabara (present-day Shinano-machi, Kamiminochi county, Nagano) is the birthplace and late-life home of Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828). At the junction of the Nakasendō (present Route 18) and the Hokkoku Kaidō, it was a thriving post town in the Edo era.

Issa and Kashiwabara

Issa left for Edo at 15 and wandered for 30 years; from 50 he returned home to Kashiwabara and lived there until his death at 65. Inheritance disputes, the deaths of wife and children, a great fire — all the tragedies of Issa’s later life occurred at Kashiwabara.

The Present-Day Kashiwabara

• Issa Memorial Museum (founded 1957, renovated 2003) — traces Issa’s whole life
• Issa’s Former Residence — a storehouse that survived the fire (a National Important Cultural Property), preserved on site
• Issa Anniversary (November 19) — annual haiku gathering on the anniversary of Issa’s death
• Kashiwabara Station — now renamed “Kurohime Station,” with a statue of Issa in front

Shinano-machi as a whole uses Issa as a tourism resource, and an Issa-related Haiku Kōshien Junior is also held there.

Kaga Kanazawa — Land of Chiyojo and Hokushi

Kaga province (present Ishikawa) — Kanazawa and Mattō (Hakusan City) — was an active haikai land from the Edo era. In particular:

• Kaga no Chiyojo (1703-1775), of Mattō, of nationwide fame for “Morning glory — the bucket taken”
• Tachibana Hokushi (?-1718), a sword-polisher of Kanazawa turned Shōmon Jittetsu, center of the Hokuriku school

Kaga flourished economically and culturally under the Maeda family (a million koku), producing merchants, samurai, and craftsmen as bearers of haikai. A tradition called “the haikai of Kaga’s million koku.”

Haiku in Modern Kanazawa

• Chiyojo no Sato Haiku Museum (Hakusan City) — opened 2010
• Kanazawa Haiku Association — the modern regional haiku body
• Kenroku-en — the famous garden of the Kaga han; still a favored place for haiku gatherings today

Kitakyūshū Kokura — Land of Sugita Hisajo’s Tragedy

Kitakyūshū Kokura (present-day Kokura-Kita ward of Kitakyūshū City) is the land where Sugita Hisajo (1890-1946) spent most of her post-marital life. Her representative verse “Hanagoromo nugu ya matsuwaru himo iroiro” is also from her Kokura years.

Kokura and Haiku

• Here Hisajo was active as the center of Hototogisu’s women’s column
• The 1936 (Shōwa 11) expulsion from Hototogisu happened while she lived in Kokura
• In 1946 (Shōwa 21) she died at the affiliated hospital of Kyūshū University in nearby Fukuoka

Haiku in Modern Kitakyūshū

• Sugita Hisajo Museum (Kokura) — opened 2003
• Matsumoto Seichō Memorial Museum — the author who portrayed Hisajo in the novel Kikumakura
• Kitakyūshū Museum of Literature — with exhibits including Hisajo

Kitakyūshū remains a major center of haiku in Fukuoka Prefecture, active to this day. Together with Fukuoka City, Saga, and Kumamoto it forms the Kyūshū haiku scene.

Owari Nagoya — Important Base of the Shōmon

Owari Nagoya (present-day Nagoya, Aichi) was the Tōkai center of Edo-period haikai. Of the Shōmon Jittetsu:

• Morikawa Kyoroku (1656-1715) — of Hikone (Shiga), but connected to Owari
• Ochi Etsujin (1656-1739) — resident in Owari Nagoya, companion on Bashō’s Sarashina Kikō
• Kagami Shikō (1665-1731) — of Mino (Gifu), but close within the Tōkai sphere

Owari is the land where *Bashō stayed on Oi no Kobumi and Sarashina Kikō, and many disciples who exchanged verses with Bashō directly remain there. Around Nagoya Castle and Atsuta Shrine — as the midpoint between Edo and Kyoto/Osaka — the town became a node in the haikai network.

Buson and Owari

Yosa Buson (1716-1783) also wandered Owari, Mino, and Kantō in his youth (1740s) and formed his network of haiku friends in Owari. One of the main bases of his training period before he settled in Kyoto.

Haiku in Modern Nagoya

• Nagoya Haiku Association
• Atsuta Shrine, as the land of shōfū origins
• Haiku gatherings and journals around Nagoya Castle

Izumo Matsue — Matsudaira Fumai and Haikai

Izumo Matsue (present-day Matsue, Shimane) became, under the rule of the Matsue-han daimyō Matsudaira Fumai (Matsudaira Harusato, 1751-1818), a major center for tea and haikai. Fumai was a giant of Japanese tea ceremony and loved haiku, waka, and calligraphy.

Matsue and Haikai

Matsue is characterized by the fusion of tea and haikai. Verse-gatherings were held in the tearoom, tea sweets set alongside haikai. “The haikai of Matsue-han” developed as a distinct tradition placed between Kamigata and Edo in mid Edo.

After Meiji, Matsue is known as the residence of Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo). Hearn was the person who introduced haiku to the English-speaking world, and his days in Matsue shaped his deep understanding of Japanese culture.

Haiku in Modern Matsue

• Matsue Castle — one of Japan’s 12 extant original castle keeps, still a site of gatherings
• Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum
• Tearooms associated with Lord Fumai — where the exchange of haikai and tea still goes on

Other Regional Haiku Centers

Echigo Nagaoka and Uonuma (Niigata)

• Ryōkan (1758-1831) — Echigo Zen monk and poet, also composed haiku
• The Echigo Shōmon (Shikō line) was active in the early modern era

Hitachi Mito (Ibaraki)

• The scholarship and haikai of Mito-han — at the end of the bakufu, haikai permeated the educated class of Mito-gaku

Mutsu Sendai (Miyagi)

• The disciples of Buson and the modern Miyagi scene are active
• Matsushima (the most important scene of Bashō’s Oku no Hosomichi) is still a haiku sacred site today

Dewa Yamagata

• *In Bashō’s Oku no Hosomichi he composed on Ryūshaku-ji (Yamadera), the Mogami River, and other Yamagata places
• The modern Yamagata haiku scene continues as “regional haiku journals”

Sanuki (Kagawa)

• Ozaki Hōsai’s Nangō-an on Shōdoshima
• Close to Matsuyama; part of the Shikoku haiku sphere

Echizen Fukui

• Tsuruga in Bashō’s Oku no Hosomichi — near the end of Bashō’s journey
• Modern Fukui haiku scene

Kyoto

• Bashō, Kyorai, Buson made Edo-era Kyoto the center
• The “Kyoto Haiku Association” is still active today

The Role of Regional Haiku Today

The significance of regional haiku:

1. Counter to the homogenization of the central scene — each region’s distinct seasonal feel, dialect, and food enters haiku
2. Tourism and local revival — the “haiku town” brand becomes a tourism resource (Matsuyama, Kashiwabara, Matsue)
3. Base of generational transmission — high-school and university haiku circles in the regions are the supply source of young poets
4. Regional rounds of the Haiku Kōshien — an important step before the national tournament

Among modern haiku journals, regional journals (Hokuriku Haiku, Shikoku Haiku, Tōhoku Haiku, and others) continue as venues for publishing works with regional distinction that would not appear in the comprehensive journals.

“Haiku of the Land” and “Haiku Without Land”

Haiku has traditionally been “a poetry rooted in the land.” Matsuo Bashō’s Oku no Hosomichi established verses in the land of Tōhoku, Issa’s verses take shape in the scenery of Shinano, Chiyojo’s verses in the water of Kaga.

But in the late 20th century, urbanization and globalization brought lives that do not root in a specific land. Shinkansen, aircraft, and internet dilute the sentiment of place.

Modern poets Hasegawa Kai, Kishimoto Naoki and others are conscious of this “dilution of place” and are exploring haiku within urban life. Meanwhile, regional poets (Matsuyama, Shinano, Kaga, Matsue) continue the tradition of haiku rooted in land.

The mutual complementarity of center and region is the essence of the modern haiku ecosystem.

Toward the Next Article

Haiku has been introduced to English readers for over 100 years (treated in overview article 17), but we have not seen concrete examples of how the leading verses of Bashō, Buson, Issa are actually translated into English. The next article compares major English translations of Bashō’s four great verses — Furuike ya, Natsukusa ya, Shizukesa ya, Samidare wo — set side by side. A round to see the technique and difficulty of translation in real examples.