Haiku in Slovak Poetry

Abstract

Haiku, the Japanese art of poetry from the 17^th century, has not only spread around the globe, but is considered one of the most popular forms of poetry ever. This paper briefly deals with haiku’s penetration into Slovak literature around 1989, when the publishing space opened for less traditional poetic genres as well. Furthermore, it examines typical rules of haiku and explains their meaning, since they cannot be considered exclusively formal criteria. In particular, the paper focuses on the well-known (wabi, sabi, kigo), as well as less known aspects of Japanese aesthetics (shiori, karumi etc.) that are connected with the haiku genre. It brings attention to the significant relationship between poetry and religious-philosophical aspect that has been typical to haiku since its beginnings. In the core of the paper lies the question of the transformation of haiku rules in Slovak environment that is demonstrated on specific, artistically compelling Slovak variants of haiku.