Haiku a phrase in the remaining 12 "on" (it may not be apparent from the English translation of the Issa that the first five "on" mean "Edo's rain"). In comparison with English verse typically characterized by syllabic meter, Japanese verse counts sound units known as ""on"" or morae. Traditional haiku consist of 17 "on", in three phrases of five, seven and five "on" respectively. Among contemporary poems "teikei" ( fixed form) haiku continue to use the 5-7-5 pattern while "jiyuritsu" ( free form) haiku do not. One of the examples below illustrates that traditional haiku masters were not always constrained by
Murō Saisei his life. In 1902, he left Kanazawa High Elementary school (equivalent to junior high school today) and started working as a clerk at the Kanazawa Regional Court. His bosses included Haiku-readers such as Kawagoe Bukotsu (河越風骨) and Akakura Kinpu (赤倉錦風) who taught him how to read/compose haiku. After numerous applications to local newspapers, his haiku was first published on October 8, 1904 in Hokkoku Shimbun. Then he used pseudonym of "Terifumi" (照文). Eventually, he also started writing poems and tanka (a Japanese poem of thirty‐one syllables). He started to use his pen name - Saisei - in 1906. The name