Masaoka Shiki Poems

Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) was instrumental in shaping the Haiku genre as we know it today. Shiki aimed to innovate the Haiku genre by experimenting with the conventional 5-7-5 haiku syllable structure.

Shiki was also a well-known essayist and critic who wrote extensively about Haiku and other types of Japanese poetry. Formerly referred to as “hokku,” Haiku were used as the opening verse of longer Japanese poems. As part of his critique work, Shiki claimed that Haiku had enough merit to stand alone as a complete poem, and he was able to popularize it as a stand-alone art form.