Haiku the colloquialism of the language and is closest to natural conversational rhythm, necessary to carry the weight of the hokku A haiku traditionally contains a "kigo", a word or phrase that symbolizes or implies the season of the poem and which is drawn from a "saijiki", an extensive but prescriptive list of such words. Kigo are often in the form of metonyms and can be difficult for those who lack Japanese cultural references to spot. The Bashō examples below include "kawazu", "frog" implying spring, and "shigure", a rain shower in late autumn or early winter. Kigo are not always included
Haiku in languages other than Japanese Haiku in languages other than Japanese The Japanese haiku has been adopted in various languages other than Japanese. The imagist poets Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell wrote what they called hokku. Their followers were the Buddhist poet Paul Reps and the Beat poets, including Jack Kerouac. The first English-language haiku magazine was "American Haiku" (1963-1968). French poets who have written haiku in French include Paul-Louis Couchoud (1905), Paul Claudel (1942), Seegan Mabesoone and Nicolas Grenier. (2002) considers that haiku in French, due to the less rhythmic nature of the French language, often include alliterations or discrete rhymes, and cites the