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Haibun (Template:Lang-ja) is a literary composition that combines prose and haiku. The range of haibun is broad and includes, but is not limited to, the following forms of prose: autobiography, biography, diary, essay, historiography, prose poem, short story and travel.

The 17th century Japanese poet, Bashō, was one prominent early writer of haibun. He wrote certain haibun as travel accounts during his various journeys, the most famous example of which is Oku no Hosomichi, or Narrow Road to the Interior. Bashō’s shorter haibun that are yet preserved include some compositions devoted to travel but focus as well on character sketches, landscape scenes, anecdotal vignettes and occasional writings written to honor a specific patron or event. His famous “Hut of the Phantom Dwelling” can be classified as an essay while, in Saga Nikki, or Saga Diary, he documents not scenes of travel but the day-to-day activities of he and his disciples on a summer retreat.

The contemporary practice of haibun composition in English is evolving rapidly. Generally, a haibun consists of one or more paragraphs of prose and one or more haiku. The prose is frequently first and is often written in a concise, imagistic haikai style. Nothing precludes the haiku preceding the prose, however, or haiku interspersed amoung the many paragraphs of a longer composition or, in fact, haiku in any position relative to the prose.

The haibun may record a scene, or a special moment, in a highly descriptive and objective manner or, on the other hand, it may occupy a wholly fictional or dream-like space. The accompanying haiku may have a direct or subtle relationship with the prose and encompass or hint at the gist of what is recorded in the prose sections. Typically, the haibuneer takes care not to state matters directly, but rather to paint a sketch, to employ allusions and metaphor, and to craft his writing with purposeful ambiguity in order to allow readers full use of their imaginations and participation in the written experience. Present tense, brevity in prose, objective detachment and implication are common characteristics of modern haibun in English but no characteristic is an inviolable rule.

Modern English-language haibun writers of note include David Cobb, Jeffrey Harpeng, Ken Jones, Jim Kacian, Michael McClintock, Stanley Pelter, William Ramsey and Ray Rasmussen.

References

1. Haibun Defined: Anthology of Haibun Definitions, quotations from various authors on Jeffrey Woodward's "Haibun Today" blog. Accessed 2008-12-19

See also

Tanka prose

External links

• contemporary haibun Online - an edited journal of haibun prose and haiku poetry
• Haibun Today: The State of the Art - Jeffrey Woodward's haibun and criticism blog
• Haibun Today's extensive haibun bibliography
• Modern Haibun & Tanka Prose - biannual journal of haibun and tanka prose
• Ray Rasmussen's haiku & photography web site featuring examples and definitions of haibun
• Simply Haiku - a quarterly online journal containing a section of modern English haibun
• Modern Haiku - an independent journal of haiku and haiku studies, offering a few modern English haibun online from each print edition
• The Hut of the Phantom Dwelling by Matsuo Bashō - 17th century Japanese haibun in translation

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