In the age of Twitter, the art of writing Haikus could come handy even though most tweets don’t qualify as poetry.
Browsing Tokyo Art Beat event page, the Shiki Masaoka and Art exhibit at Yokosuka Museum of Art piqued my curiosity.
Poet Shiki Masaoka (1867-1902) “was an innovator of modern haiku poetry who cultivated close relationships with Western-style painters like Chu Asai and Fusetsu Nakamura. On display at this exhibition are paintings by Masaoka himself in addition to other works by Meiji-era artists.”
The Yokosuka Museum of Art exhibit closes on April 15, 2012.
Hungarian site ‘Terebess Asia Online‘ has a detailed profile of Shiki Masaoka.
They give us some context on both the era he lived in and his own path with sentence below:
“In 1868 Japan launched into a civilized society from the feudal age. Western culture had a great effect on it and civilization rapidly developed modern culture.
In the previous year 1867, Masaoka Shiki was born in Matsuyama. His father served the Matsuyama domain in the lower rank of samurai. Shiki lived to be 35 years old and died of tuberculosis of spine in 1902. In his last seven years, he had to be confined to his bed; however, during that time he accomplished three of his great works on modern literature: Haiku Reform, Tanka reform, Advocating Sketch-from-Life-Prose.”
Amateur Haiku writers were invited by Japan Society (NY) to share their sakura-infused haiku.
Selected poems will be projected during the annual j-CATION fest at Japan Society on Sunday, April 15.
Art of Haiku, Haiku and Art for Tokyo Thursdays # 231
Previously: In Need of an Appetizer, Chilled Tofu with Crunchy Baby Sardines from ‘Asian Tofu’