2016 Haiku Japanese Art And Poetry Wall Calendar

The roots of Japanese haiku reach back over a thousand years. In the Japanese haiku poem, as in life, there is a pause, a shift, in which the poet celebrates sensory awareness of the season, perhaps suggested by the scent of red plum blossoms, the sight of a waxwing foraging for berries, or the silence of a snow-covered meadow. The timeless appeal of this understated poetic form may be the human desire to capture one's impressions of a fleeting moment. Such seasonal allusions emphasize the essence of haiku: nature and its ephemeral beauty. This calendar features twelve haiku paired with reproductions of exquisite Japanese woodcuts from the extensive collections of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Each poem is rendered in Japanese calligraphy, romanji transliteration, and English translation.