Folk Ku Journal

It is always an honor for me to contribute to Folk Ku Journal, a publication dedicated to the Japanese poet Masaoka Shiki and his principle of shasei, or “sketch from life,” style of haiku. My sincere thanks to the editors for including two of my poems in the November/December 2025 Issue 6, titled “Trees.”

atop the white pine
a clear-eyed hawk
grounded by fog

In the late 19th century, Masaoka Shiki revolutionized Japanese poetry by introducing shasei. He argued that a poet should act like a painter with a sketchbook, capturing nature exactly as it is, without the clutter of forced sentiment or metaphor.

This haiku highlights nature’s ability to strip things down to their essentials. The fog isn’t just weather, it is the force of nature that grounds the hawk. By placing a sky-bound hunter in a state of quiet observation, the poem reminds us that clarity isn’t always about seeing through the distance. Sometimes, it’s about having the patience to wait for the horizon to return.

blowing leaves
I too drift through this
unsettled night

While Shiki often focused on stationary objects, he also believed in capturing the “vibration” of a moment exactly as it felt.

In this haiku, the “sketch” isn’t a landscape, it’s a feeling of displacement. Shasei requires the poet to observe the world without ego, yet here, the wind that moves the leaves is the same invisible force moving the soul. The speaker moves as aimlessly as the leaves on the sidewalk, transforming a restless night into a natural phenomenon. There is no distinction here between the wind in the trees and the wind in the spirit. Both are just parts of an unsettled world.

Click here to read the entire sixth issue of Folk Ku Journal.