USAWA ♦ COMMONPLACE

We have a very interesting haiku and haibun workshop coming up this month by author and poet Rochelle Potkar. This led me to dig through the history of haiku and find female haiku poets.

Teijo Nakamura (1900-1988) was one of the greatest of the modern women haiku masters in Japan. She created her own movement of women’s haiku, having her own group Kazahana (Snow Flowers in Wind). At a time when women haiku poets in Japan were often dismissed and their poetry labelled as “kitchen haiku”, Teijo carved a unique space.

The haiku below is translated by Patricia Donegan & Yoshie Ishibashi (5-7-5 syllable count in the original Japanese; open-ended in translation).