Japanese poetry the "honored guest" composing a few beginning lines, often in the form of the "hokku" (which, as a stand-alone piece, eventually evolved into the haiku). This initial sally was followed by a stanza composed by the "host." This process could continue, sometimes with many stanzas composed by numerous other "guests", until the final conclusion. Other collaborative forms of Japanese poetry also evolved, such as the "renku" ("linked-verse") form. In other cases, the poetry collaborations were more competitive, such as with "uta-awase" gatherings, in which Heian period poets composed "waka" poems on set themes, with a judge deciding the winner(s). Haiku
Mora (linguistics) moraic system of writing. For example, in the two-syllable word "mōra", the "ō" is a long vowel and counts as two morae. The word is written in three symbols, モーラ, corresponding here to , each containing one mora. Such scholars also argue that the 5/7/5 pattern of the haiku in modern Japanese is of morae rather than syllables. The Japanese syllable-final "n" is also said to be moraic, as is the first part of a geminate consonant. For example, the Japanese name for "Japan", 日本, has two different pronunciations, one with three morae ("Nihon") and one with four ("Nippon"). In