This is a photo of a haiku workshop for the group of Professor Tatiana Breslavets, Japanese literature and Philology Group at Far Eastern Federal University.

From September 25 till October 2, 2011, Hidenori Hiruta, a member of the Haiku International Association (HIA), whose president is Dr. Akito Arima, had an opportunity to introduce and share haiku in Vladivostok, Russia.

During his stay in Vladivostok, Hiruta visited Eastern School, Far Eastern Federal University, and Japan Center there.

His visit there was supported by Akita Prefecture and Akita International University as well as by the Haiku International Association and the JAL Foundation.

On September 26, Hiruta paid a courtesy visit to Japan Center and Far Eastern Federal University, School of Regional and International Studies, Chair of Japanese Philology, Chair of Asia Pacific Region Countries’ Languages.

Hiruta told Director, Sohei Oishi and Head of the Chair, Alexander Shnyrko about the aims of his visit, and asked them for their cooperation, hoping for a further spread of haiku in Vladivostok.

In his visits to Eastern School, Hiruta told about haiku to kindergarten children and elementary pupils who study Japanese. The children enjoyed reading haiku in chorus in Japanese as well as in Russian. They also enjoyed drawing pictures about haiku.

In Japan Center in Vladivostok, Hiruta gave a talk on “Haiku and Tea Ceremony” to the members of the tea club “Ichigo Ichie no Kai” formed for the cultural course.

The articles on Hiruta’s activities for cultural exchanges through haiku in Vladivostok have appeared in the following homepages of the Japan club at Japan Center in Vladivostok and the Haiku International Association in Tokyo.

* The Russian　version : http://www.jp-club.ru/?p=2341
* The Japanese version :　http://www.haiku-hia.com/report_jp.html
* The English version :  http://www.haiku-hia.com/hyoron_en_ru.html

Hiruta gave four-day workshops of 90 minutes on writing haiku, short poems, at the FEFU School of Regional and International Studies. Students learned to write haiku through these workshops.

The article on the workshops at Far Eastern Federal University has appeared in the homepage of Far Eastern Federal Universisty.
http://dvfu.ru/publications/news/2011-10-14-fefu-students-learn-to.htm

It says as follows.

The workshops were conducted by “Haydzin” Hiruta Hidenori — a poet who writes haiku specially arrived to Vladivostok. Students, studying the Japanese language, listened with interest to the explanations of how to write haiku in various languages — Japanese, English and Russian, and then created their own poems.

Mr. Hiruta arrived from Akita Prefecture, which has friendly relations with Primorsky Region. Next year there will be the 20-th Anniversary of sister-relationships between Akita and Vladivostok. Universities in these cities have students and teachers exchange agreements, so Far Eastern Federal University students may participate in the Haiku contest in Russian, as well as in Japanese and English. Winners of the competition have a real opportunity to go to Japan.

Such cultural exchanges as this caused a great sensation there in Vladivostok, making them more interested in haiku and inspiring them to write haiku.

This is why the Akita International Haiku Network is pleased to launch the Japan-Russia Haiku Contest, as an opportunity to share haiku related to the theme of “the sea”.  

The organizer hopes that this contest will serve as an opportunity to deepen mutual understanding among people, to promote the interaction of people's views on Japan and Russia, as well as to convey the enjoyment of writing and reading haiku.

The organizer also hopes that it will serve as an opportunity to strengthen and develop the sister city relationship between Akita and Vladiovostok, as well as to promote and increase comprehensive exchanges such as cultural, economical, medical, agricultural ones between Akita Prefecture and Primorsky Region.  

As mentioned in the homepage of Far Eastern Federal University, Akita Prefecture has friendly relations with Primorsky Region. In March, 2010, Akita Prefecture and Primorsky Region concluded the treaty that there should be more exchanges promoted and increased between them. This treaty reminds Hiruta of those fruitful exchanges the ancient people had by way of the northern sea route from the 8th century till the 10th century. Japan is said to have started trading with Balhae（渤海） by ship in those days.

Organizer:　Akita International Haiku Network

Sponsor:　JAL Foundation

Supporters:　Akita Prefecture, Akita International University, Akita Prefectural Board of Education, Akita Prefectural Artistic and Cultural Association, Akita International Association, Akita City, Akita City Board of Education,

The Akita Sakigake Shimpo, Akita Branch of Ten’i (Providence) Haiku Group, Akita Khorosho Club, Akita Vladivo Club, Haiku International Association, Japan Center in Vladivostok, Far Eastern Federal University, Yosano Akiko Memorial Literary Association, KYODO NEWS Vladivostoku Bureau

Theme: Umi ( the sea
One of the most popular haiku related to the sea was written by Matsuo Basho in 1689 . Basho’s haiku is found in his travel diary Oku no Hosomichi ( The Narrow Road to Oku).

荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河　　　　　　　　 芭蕉
Araumi ya  sado ni yokotau  amanogawa

Turbulent the sea –
Across to Sado stretches
The Milky Way                    Basho

Translated by Donald Keene（ドナルド・キーン：鬼怒鳴門）

Regulations:
Original, previously unpublished haiku referring to some aspect of the sea should be submitted according to the entry form. Japanese haiku poets should write haiku following traditonal styles in the Japanese language, having season words. And they have to add its Russian and English traslations.  

Russian haiku poets should keep in mind that haiku is considered to be the shortest poem in the world, and submit haiku with a length of three lines in the Russian language. Season words are not essential. And they have to add its Japanese and English translations.

Limited number of entries: Only one haiku may be submitted per haikuist.

Eligibility:
The contest is open to the public of nationals of Japan or Russia who are currently residing in Japan or Russia.

Submission:
Please download the entry form (Word file) and submit it by email to: shhiruta@nifty.com

Submission period:  Saturday May 5, 2012  –  Friday May 25, 2012

Deadline: Friday May 25, 2012

Judges:
Hidenori Hiruta, Secretary-General of Akita International Haiku Network, and also a member of Haiku International Association
Alexander Dolin, Professor at Akita International University
Kunio Teshima, Professor at Akita National College of Technology
Kazuhiro Kudo, Teacher at Akita National College of Technology
Okiaki Ishida, Chief Editor of Haisei (Haiku Stars)
Yoshitomo Igarashi, a dojin of a haiku group : Ten’I (Providence) led by Dr. Akito Arima
Kyoko Uchimura, a dojin of a haiku group : Ten’I (Providence) by Dr. Akito Arima, and also a member of Haiku International Association
Reina Yano, a dojin of two haiku groups : Tamamo led by Ms. Tsubaki Hoshino and
Ten’I (Providence) by Dr. Akito Arima

Awards:
A winner will be notified by email and announced on the website of Akita International Haiku Network, on Friday, June 29, 2012.  The winner will be offered a round-trip to Akita City, Akita, which is called “The Land of Poetry” in Akita Prefectural song, in Northern Honshu, Japan from Vladivostok Airport and a stay in a hot spring hotel there if he or she lives in Russia. The winner is supposed to attend Japan-Russia haiku meeting held in Akita City, on Saturday, Sepetember 22, 2012.  And if the winner resides in Japan, a round -trip ticket to Vladivostok City of Russia from Narita Airport and a stay in a hotel there will be offered. The winner is supposed to attend Japan-Russia haiku meeting held in Vladivostok City, the site of APEC Summit 2012 in Russia, on Saturday, September 29, 2012.  Further information will be notified directly from the organizer to the winner.

Grand prize a winner gets is called “The Rogetsu Sanjin International Award”.  Rogetsu Sanjin is another pen name of Ishii Rogetsu（石井露月）, one of the great haiku poets in Japan Akita ever produced. Rogetsu is a pen name, whose real name is Ishii Yuji (1873 – 1928). This haiku contest is held partly because of celebrating the 140th anniverasay of Ishii Rogetsu’s birth.

JAL Foundation Award is presented to two winners by the JAL Foundation. Honorble mentions are also presented to six winners by Akita Prefecture governor, Akita City mayor, superintendent of Akita City board of education.

Each winner is presented with Haiku By World Childrenedited by the JAL Foundation as an award.

*The contest winner will be notified by email from the organizer and be given further details of the round-trip prize. Please note that the winner may have to cover some of the travelling costs.

Russian Version

РУССКО-ЯПОНСКИЙ КОНКУРС ХАЙКУ
12 марта, 2012,

Edited by Toshio Kimura, director of Haiku International Association "Memories in Blue" has been published. Please read all means - "Haiku on the Japan Earthquake 3.11.2011" in it.

Vladimir Devide (1925-2010) : a Japanologist and haiku poet of Croatia.

[As for the details,see http://librasia.iafor.org/haiku.html]

The language of the competition is English.

We ask that you submit only one haiku.

The judges will consider each poem on its individual merits, and make no distinction between traditional and modern haiku.

We ask that the haiku you submit not be already published or in circulation.

Please send your submission by email to librasia@iafor.org with 'Haiku competition' in the subject heading. Please remember to include your name, address and contact details.

All entries must be received by the deadline of March 1, 2012.

The jury will be headed by His Excellency Dr Drago Stambuk, Croatian Ambassador to Brazil, and noted poet.

Originating from Japan, Haiku is the shortest form of poetry in the world. In a short descriptive verse, it captures a moment in the poet’s life, or simply expresses the beauty of nature. Haiku is now enjoyed in many countries around the world. 

JAL Foundation biennially organize 'World Children’s Haiku Contest', and we are happy to announce that the 12th contest is to be held this year. 　All winning haiku will be collected and published next year as an anthology titled Haiku By World Children.

12th World Children's Haiku Contest

Columbia, SC:  As an award-winning poet drawn to formal structures, Lenard D. Moore writes in more than thirty poetic forms, from bop, free verse, and kwansaba to sestina, triolet, and villanelle. But the form he favors most is haiku. Perhaps it is the challenge of working with only three lines totaling seventeen syllables. Perhaps it is because he sees haiku as “a way of life.” It is one he enjoys sharing: Moore, who is the first African American as well as the first Southerner to become president of the Haiku Society of America, will lead a workshop on writing haiku at “Bookin’ It On Main: A Celebration of Black Writers.”

Though haiku is a Japanese form whose history goes back hundreds of years, it is also popular among American poets, who, Moore said, “appreciate how haiku depicts what is happening now, how it includes a contrast of two unlike things and how the reader must participate in the experience of it.”

Moore, who teaches at Mount Olive College in North Carolina, has been writing and publishing haiku for almost thirty years. Many appear in his own books “The Open Eye” and “Desert Storm, A Brief History.” In addition, he has several books of longer poems, including “A Temple Looming” and “Forever Home.” His work also has been included in more than fifty anthologies, including Kwame Dawes' about-to-be-released "Home Is Where." Among Moore's many honors, he is a three-time winner of the Haiku Museum of Tokyo Award. “I am drawn to the precision of imagery and the conciseness of language in haiku,” he said. “I also like the oneness of existence with the natural world.”

There is more to haiku than format. A traditional haiku also includes a “kigo” ‐words or a word describing a particular season‐ that Moore said “contributes to the deepening of a haiku.” Nonetheless, Moore added, “I think there is room for experimentation in haiku, though it is important to understand the haiku guidelines and know how they work. When I teach a haiku workshop, I start with the haiku guidelines and discuss how they work to help the poet write effective haiku.”

“Bookin’ It On Main” will take place on Saturday, November 12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in and around the Columbia Museum of Art. The event will include free readings by sixteen poets, most of whom have poems included in Kwame Dawes’ new anthology, “Home Is Where,” along with ten writing workshops, live music, book signings, a vendor area, and for younger children, an all-day BYOB ‐ Bring Your Own Book ‐ during which children who bring in a picture book can have it read aloud to them. Workshop registration is under way at http://bookinitonmain.eventbrite.com/. For information on “Bookin’ It On Main,” please visit http://lingolit.wordpress.com/bookin-it-on-main or contact bookin.it.on.main@gmail.com.

Since ancient times, Fujisan(Mt Fuji) has been a sacred mountain and the source of artistic inspiration. Keeping in mind this unique cultural value of Fujisan, we are aiming for Fujisan to be inscribed as a World Cultural Heritage Site.

This time, our goal is to create an opportunity for people from home and abroad to reflect anew upon this value of Fujisan. Drawing inspiration from famous haiku writers Basho and Buson, the theme is on Fujisan, and to be composed in haiku for the "Fujisan Haiku."

The Kikakuza International Haibun Contest will have to be terminated with the publication of the booklet containing the decorated works from the past three years. Judges, Nobuyuki Yuasa and Stephen Henry Gill, however, have decided to continue under the title of the Genjuan International Haibun Contest.

Genjuan is the name of the cottage near Lake Biwa where Basho lived for a time in 1690. It was probably the happiest period of his life, and it was there that he wrote his most famous short haibun.

The purpose of the Contest will remain the same as before, and there will be little change to the guidelines. We wish to encourage the writing of fine haibun and maintain the connection between the traditional Japanese perception of haibun and what is evolving around the world. The judges are hoping that the Contest will continue to receive a warm response from all the haibun writers of the world.

The award for the Grand Prix will remain the same – a good replica of a Hokusai ukiyo-e print – and smaller gifts will be sent to the An (Cottage) Prize-winners. The An Prizes replace the Za Prizes of last year. The writers of all the decorated works will receive a certificate of merit. We sincerely look forward to your participation.

Guidelines for 2012

All entries should reach the following address by 31 January 2012. Entries received after this date will not be accepted. Please send your entries to: Ms. Motoko Yoshioka, Regalia 907, 7-32-44 Fujimi-cho, Tachikawa-shi, Tokyo 190-0013, Japan. Please avoid sending by express, and using extra- large envelopes. Please write your home address on your envelope, too.

LibrAsia 2011 Keynote Address by His Excellency Dr Drago Stambuk, Croatian Ambassador to Brazil. With a Foreward by Dr Joseph Haldane, Executive Director of IAFOR.

If you click the picture or URL, you can read the e-booklet (in external site).

http://issuu.com/iafor/docs/stambuk_keynote_2011

Mina-sama konnichiwa

Dear friends,

I would like to say a few words before beginning my speech.

Dr. Drago Štambuk

It is a great privilege and a solemn pleasure to be back.
I returned from Japan to my home country of Croatia just before Christmas of last year. I have found myself missing this country profoundly ever since.
But that sentiment was nothing compared to what I experienced when the great earthquake hit Japan: I became ill. It was my inability to be here that made me unwell, the inability to share with people I love and respect the burden of these terrible times. I felt guilty for not being among them, for not sharing their pain and suffering.
In the past few weeks, it has dawned on me that my emotional reaction was due to the same sense of unjust privilege and exemption felt by all survivors of great disasters. A feeling of deep shame and culpability for having been absent at a time of great need—for having been on safe ground, in the faraway country of Croatia.
It is thus with mingled pleasure and grief that I return to Japan now, conveying the great sorrow that I and my countrymen feel at the tragedy which has befallen this beloved country, as well as our enduring respect for the dignity and humanity with which it is being borne.

Let me now proceed to the opening speech for this joint session of the Asian Conference on Literature & Librarianship and The Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities:

Haiku Consciousness, a Homecoming

The images beamed around the world in the aftermath of the March 11th earthquake were nothing short of apocalyptic. For me, they brought to mind, and horribly crystallized, all the calamities with which our earth is presently afflicted: the warming of the planet and drastic climate change, poverty and hunger, pollution and the menace of nuclear disaster, conflicts for dwindling resources and about world supremacy. The population of the earth is threatened beyond words.

Obliviously and obviously, we seem to march down a path of self-destruction that could be symbolically presented in the image of Ouroboros – the snake that eats its own tail. The world, our only world, as an Ouroboros! Isn't our planet, along with mankind which populates it, on the verge of perishing? Yet we must strive to understand the condition of world in this time of looming and catastrophic downfall, to diagnose the disease in time and to prescribe the cure. We must fight with conviction, determination, and the will to survive. The pressing task of our day is the very continuation of human life on this beautiful God-given blue planet. You may think my depiction exceedingly bleak, but for all that, mine is a message of hope: I retain the conviction that mankind is capable of thinking, feeling and acting more harmoniously and responsibly than we do at present. And I want to use the haiku as a way of thinking about an improved humanity.

The haiku is a way of accessing and representing, an agenda for the common good, for the common betterment. By definition, the haiku is brief; even tiny. Yet in three short lines, a vast metaphysical expanse opens up: this is the paradox, the shock and the achievement of the haiku. A minimal amount of text charged with infinite space and time. I call this open space, this arena of metaphysics, the haiku consciousness. It is a way of being in harmony with nature, and with one's own nature. It's a way of connecting between the world inside and the world outside; of joining our own internal light with the exterior illumination. Imagine what it could mean for our world if haiku consciousness and composition could be globalised, could be generalised, universalised.

Haiku acts as a harmonising force on man's relation with nature, with the outside world. Especially in an era where disjuncture between man and nature is so pronounced, we should inculcate the noble concepts of haiku, and disseminate the practice as widely as possible.

To encourage the global practice of haiku, I think it is crucial to set aside strict rules and limitations of prosody that are not crucial to its composition or aesthetic.

the late Dr. Vladimir Devide

When I proposed the creation of a Haiku Award in memory of Professor Vladimir Devide, the pioneer of haiku in Croatia and in the region as a whole, I suggested that modern and traditional haiku should be treated as equals. This is especially crucial for international haiku composition and competition, since not all languages can reflect Japanese syllabic patterns, nor do all climates mirror the four clear seasons which find expression in classical haiku. Insistence on narrow limitations won't give the haiku room to breathe in other languages, climates, cultures. Haiku is something more universal than its mere formal rules: it is a state of mind and an approach to thought, and as such it cannot be confined to a certain amount of syllables or morae.

Let me explain what I think haiku can do for the spirit. I believe that all the great sacred traditions show that consciousness began with only inner light, in a time when humanity was in union with the Supreme Being and Creator. Corruption originated when people began tasting of the earth and of the outer light. The external world is thus the creation of otherness, which by the same token diminished the essence of our creation by diverting us from God and breaking our union with Him. This is the tension that creates the need for a metaphysical resolution.

The haiku woman or man (rather than the poet) is a person who stands inside that chaotic darkness and waits. This is not an idle way of waiting; it is alert, conscious and focused. What do they wait for? They wait for the lightning to strike – that lightning which illuminates the world around them. To look at the world boldly, in the sudden light of haiku consciousness is to commit an act of love and complete understanding. Looking becomes presence – the gift of seeing, in depth, and with the power of discernment. It is a kind of satori beyond the critical mind and devoid of criticism. Compassion permeates this kind of mindfulness and attentiveness. Haiku leads us in the right direction, homewards, in a process of rediscovery and reassimilation of our compelling and inherent universal values.

Our inherent and perpetual longing for our real homeland, for the Golden Age, for union with the divine, is an attempt to counteract the chaotic differentiation which has defined our behaviour from time immemorial. Thus, haiku consciousness is a deceptively modest and indirect way of animating our memory of the long-gone Golden Era. In today's prevailing atmosphere of chaos and disorder, haiku consciousness brings into focus the ambient disruption and cacophony, while highlighting the need for serenity, for the homecoming. We have lost sight of our own nature in the whirl of the day-to-day, in the fog of petty concerns. The quotidian overwhelms the crucial values of our existence; myopic greed and consumerism have put us at odds with our environment, with our only planet.

This is not a new development; from the beginning of the earth, the human ego has created an existential disorder and broken our joint vessel; now it has initiated, brought on the epoch of apocalypses. The haiku is a minute and piecemeal, but inestimable and hopeful corrective. Through it we can inch closer to a reconstruction of the lost harmony between ourselves and nature, ourselves and God. In a world overcrowded with people, objects and concrete, it is through small acts that we can enlarge our metaphysical space, that we expand our capacity for love, charity and compassion, that we must look to our salvation.

There are many words for what we have lost; our Tao, our way, our union with the gods, our fullness, our wholeness, our completeness. There can be no other remedy but a return to older ways of thinking and feeling. Haiku creates a new old completeness of Earth and Heaven, Man and God, visible and invisible. Through it we can train ourselves to regain our old consciousness.

This is my agenda for haiku consciousness; to awaken our metaphysical sensitivity, open our eyes wide, and—in a flash of understanding of all our blind decisions and wrong turns—finally choose the only tenable option, a soothing spiritual path to heal and recuperate, path for which we can use the same name as ancient traditions did – Tao, the Way, Eternal Home. We must learn or relearn how to give love and how to receive love.

Therefore I welcome all of you who are involved in haiku writing, and also all of you who read and cherish haiku and contribute to the forces of good - what I like to call survivalist band. I invite you to join hands in encouraging the globalisation of the forces of good, of everything that I have been trying to underline: the haiku forces of beauty and homecoming. All those of you who through the ancient Japanese traditions of Shintoism and Buddhism understand the meaning and value of jodo – the pure land concept of the sacredness of earth, which views nature as an ally, an inescapable friend and a nurturer of humanity; I repeat the call for you to work towards haiku's regenerative influence on ecology and green thinking, to proselytise the religious love of nature, i.e. its assistance and contribution to our survival.

Therefore: Vivat haiku! – let's live in, of and by haiku consciousness and writing. Let's celebrate its ethical purity, its metaphysical austerity, let's become the priests and followers of religion called poetry.

With the concerted efforts of all who are gathered here today and of our friends elsewhere, let's clear away the corruption and decay, the suffocating materialism, the strangling vines about our spirits, let's scrape the mould from our souls. The values of life, love, peace, compassion and harmony must prevail on our earth; otherwise our existence will be cut short. Anyone who wants to govern mankind and nations must become its servant. Thus, let us all become servants dedicated to serving the good, initiating the change in our own hearts, bringing out the living existence of the great heart, the great soul, the Mahatma of humanity.

I wish to close with an example of linguistic sophistication in Japanese, its stunning capacity to denote, to name the grades and hues of existence. So, for example, in discerning degrees of moisture. There are many, but I'd like to cite one example - SHIMERU, which denotes the grade of moisture in the air, too great for a person to strike a match.

We can use it as an allegory. Against the creeping damp of our world, we must exert our own burning and warming hearts to lessen SHIMERU. That way, we can ignite our matches, make a fire in our hearth again, a fire on which we can warm our hands. We need to return to warmth and compassion. We should be warm to others, so that we can ourselvews feel warm again. We should love to be loved again.

The haiku is a minute and precise, a precious tool in this endeavour. It is a tool of our salvation; therefore I'll finish this presentation by reading in three versions (Japanese, English and Croatian) one of the greatest and exceptionally majestic, perhaps the most spacious, all-encompassing haiku of all times, which prompted my piligrimage to Japanese Sado island in 2009. You already know where this is heading:

Matsuo BASHO

Ara-umi ya
Sado ni yokoto
Ama-no-gawa

Stormy sea.
Milky way
reaches Sado island.

Uzburkano more.
Kumovska slama
seže do Sada.

Domo arrigato gozaimashita.

Dr. Drago Štambuk
Osaka, Librasia Conference on Asian Literature
28 May 2011

Japan's first and only international haibun contest, the Kikakuza, has just published the four English prize-winning entries in this year's competition - two American, one each from Bhutan and South Africa.
To read them, please visit
http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/kikakuza-11-winning-haibun/

Click the word 'Icebox' (at top) to return to the top page and view the complete results.

Judges: Nobuyuki Yuasa and Stephen Henry Gill.

Japan earthquake: Haiku poets capture Japan's disaster's pain in 17 syllables
Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis have inspired many to turn to the time-honored tradition of haiku poetry.
March 26, 2011, by Julie Makinen, Los Angeles Times

About the nuclear power plant
too much detail I hear
such unhappiness

First the ground shook, then the sea swallowed the land. Fires raged, lights went out, invisible menaces seeped into the air, the water, the soil. Tears flowed and headlines blared tales of tragedy, sorrow and fear. All the words in the world, perhaps, could not capture the enormity of it all.

Amid the cacophony of news bulletins and tweets and cellphone alerts registering yet another aftershock, Yoshikatsu Kurota quietly sent out his brief verse. It was published Thursday, in small type, on Page 14 of the mass-circulation Asahi daily, in the corner that Japan's newspapers still devote to such poetic endeavors.

Tossed like a pebble into a lake, it made not a splash but a gentle ripple. Seventeen syllables, radiating out into the universe, perhaps touching a few other distressed souls adrift in the chaos.

Mere trifle to some, a quintessence of Japan to others, maligned and beloved, the haiku endures.

In these heartsick times, aficionados of the form both here and abroad have been stirred to put brush to scroll, pen to postcard, fingers to keyboard, meshing the ancient and the modern, the sublime and the horrific.

"It's safe, but"
they say over and over
that's worrisome

Tadashi Nishimura's lament (which, like most here, were written in Japanese and have been translated from the original 17 syllables) appeared alongside Kurota's in the pages of the Asahi. The poem distills his anxiety about officials' frequent reassurances that all is fine - even as they warn day in and out about vegetables, milk and water contaminated by radiation from the stricken nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture.

The two men's compositions are technically senryuu, which follow the same syllabic rules as haiku but are typically more social commentary than, say, musings on natural phenomena such as the ephemeral beauty of a cherry blossom. In a culture that can seem unacquainted with sarcasm, senryuu can range from mildly chiding to strikingly acerbic.

Kunio Kataoka's submission registered his scorn for a Japanese bank whose ATM network was hobbled for days after the quake, making it difficult for victims to get much-needed cash.

We earnestly make donations
but the bank says
don't use our system

Though the march of modernity has perhaps shrunk the number of regular haikuists in Japan, it has also expanded their options for airing the verses - besides the newspaper, there are a multitude of haiku blogs, and Twitter has become a popular forum for the pint-size poems. Still, there is a loyal following for haiku magazines such as Hototogisu, which dates to the late 1800s and whose title means "cuckoo."

Yasuharu You, 78, a Buddhist monk from the Shin sect who leads Kyoto's Higashi Hongan Temple, has been composing haiku since he was in high school.

When a large earthquake rocked his native Niigata in October 2004, he dove under a futon as furniture and light fixtures crashed down around him. Driven out into the frigid night, beset by unease, the haiku came to him:

It's cold and wet
camping outdoors
aftershocks multiplying the misery

The poem spread, and residents' response to it was so powerful that the haiku was eventually carved onto a memorial stone in the city.

In the wake of this month's tragedy, You composed something of a follow-up to his 2004 sensation, which Hototogisu accepted for its latest issue.

Day of disaster
I can never forget
the cold and wet

"The poet Takahama Kyoshi said haiku should be a record of daily life," You explained. "It is not just for enjoyment; recording the tragedy of the earthquake in verse is also important."

Haiku has among its devotees not only men of letters but men of science, some of them experts in the fields that have wreaked such havoc on Japan in recent days. The head of the Tokyo-based Haiku International Assn., Akito Arima, is a nuclear physicist who served as president of Tokyo University, the nation's most prestigious institute of higher education. Former Kyoto University President Kazuo Oike, a seismologist, is another practitioner.

"I am a scientist by vocation, and so looking at nature with this eye can bring new meaning" to poetry, Oike wrote in an email. Though he said he planned to bide his time before composing a new haiku, in the past two decades he often has been inspired by nature's fury.

The big tsunami
scattering as far as here
a cloud of seabirds

Boats cars
houses and people in the flow
western wind

David McMurray, a professor at the International University of Kagoshima who edits the Asahi newspaper's biweekly English poetry feature, Asahi Haikuist Network has been sorting through submissions for his April 1 edition.

In normal times, he gets about 100 contributions a day, via email, fax and even old-fashioned post. This month's tragedy, however, has brought him a wealth of new voices.

"People write about death, love, war, anything that's very important," said McMurray, a Canadian. "Poetry is for catharsis, right?"

Some contributors, McMurray said, include short explanations of their compositions.

Raj Bose of Honolulu had to wait three days to get word that his son in Japan was safe. At last, a brief message came to his inbox.

"Daddy I'm fine"
time stopping and restarting
email from Tokyo

A contributor from Los Angeles, Stephen J. DeGuire, paid homage to Matsuo Basho, a 17th century haiku virtuoso whose masterwork, "The Narrow Road to the Deep North," was inspired by his treks in the area ravaged by the March 11 disaster.

Basho's road
throughout Tohoku
hope remains

Typically, a haiku will include a special word or phrase, called a kigo, that signals what season the poem is about. One such phrase is "spring sea," which this year poets are appropriating to signify the tsunami.

A regular contributor, who goes by the pen name Murasaki Sagano, wrote McMurray to say her mother had died five days after the tsunami.

Mother's pain
into the spring sea
her last sleep