Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A haiku.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A type of
Japanese poem .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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In it, the concluding hemistich of the tanka is left off, and it is just in his hemistich that the meaning of the poem is brought out, so that the hokku is a mere essence, a whiff of an idea to be created in full by the hearer.
Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan b. 974? Murasaki Shikibu Izumi Shikibu 1920
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The first hemistich which was composed of 17 syllables grew to be called the hokku, the second or finishing hemistich of 14 syllables was called ageku.
Japanese Prints John Gould Fletcher 1918
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The only link that must be able to stand alone is the hokku, the "starting link" of the complete renga.
MetaHaiku Heather McDougal 2009
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We must reform hokku — we shall henceforth call it haiku!
Néojaponisme » Blog Archive » A History of Modern Japanese Literary Criticism: Act One, Scene 1 2009
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He decided that hokku was a powerful force for order in English.
THE ANTHOLOGIST Nicholson Baker 2009
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He decided that hokku was a powerful force for order in English.
THE ANTHOLOGIST Nicholson Baker 2009
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In theory, the short-stop holds the same relation to the eight-line poem that the Japanese hokku does to the tanka, although of course it preceded the hokku by many centuries.
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But the hokku was not invented until the fifteenth century; before that, the tanka, in spite of occasional attempts to vary it by adding more lines, changing their order, using the pattern in combination as a series of stanzas, etc., reigned practically supreme, and it is still the chief classic form for all Japanese poetry.
Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan b. 974? Murasaki Shikibu Izumi Shikibu 1920
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It will always come back to me in the blur of that hokku: The heart of a woman of thirty is like the red ball of the sun seen through a mist.
Put Off the Wedding Five Times and Nobody Comes to It. VIII. Circles of Doors 1920
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That is not to say, that, by taking the letter for the spirit, we should in any way strive to imitate the hokku form.
Japanese Prints John Gould Fletcher 1918
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