Haiku and drawing for it. The most beautiful tercets written by Russian schoolchildren based on classic Japanese haiku

Irina Klimina

Hello everyone!

Children love to draw. They also love to compose. different stories about your drawings. Let's try to combine these two points. But we won’t compose for nothing.

Children are unusually able to respond emotionally to words and poetic lines. Remember how a baby calms down and falls asleep to the simple words of a lullaby... I know one wonderful child who was instantly lulled to sleep by the poetry of K. Chukovsky.

And how children listen to fairy tales! True, you also need to read them skillfully, because the voice (timbre, intonation) can be both fascinating and repulsive.

We got a little distracted... Have you noticed that children always want to tell you about their drawing at the end of the lesson? But, as a rule, the story is very verbose, and it is difficult for a child to highlight the main thing. When he starts telling a story, he often gets carried away so much that he can even get away from the very topic of the picture... And we decided to introduce the children to amazing Japanese poems that fit in only three lines.

Have you heard of haiku (haiku? These are Japanese lyrical tercets, which are distinguished by extreme brevity and unique poetics.

Brevity is similar to haiku folk proverbs. Some tercets found circulation in folk speech as proverbs, such as the poem by the poet Basho:

I'll say the word -

Lips freeze.

Autumn whirlwind!

As a proverb it means that “caution sometimes forces one to remain silent.”

But most often, haiku differs sharply from the proverb in its genre characteristics. This is not a didactic saying, short parable or a well-aimed wit, but a poetic picture sketched in one or two strokes. The poet’s task is to infect the reader with lyrical excitement, to awaken his imagination, and for this it is not necessary to paint a picture in all its details.

Haiku is akin to the art of painting. They were often painted on the subjects of paintings and, in turn, inspired artists; sometimes they turned into a component of the painting in the form of a calligraphic inscription on it. Sometimes poets resorted to methods of depiction akin to the art of painting. This is, for example, Buson’s tercet:

Crescent flowers around.

The sun is going out in the west.

The moon is rising in the east.

Sometimes the whole haiku is an extended metaphor, but it direct meaning usually hidden in subtext.

From the heart of a peony

The bee slowly crawls out.

Oh, with what reluctance!

Basho composed this poem while leaving the hospitable home of his friend.

You can talk about hockey for a very long time. But, I think, if someone is interested in this topic, you can find excellent samples both in the store and on the Internet Japanese poetry, once you read them, you won’t be able to forget them. True, they cannot be read in fits and starts; this requires solitude and a certain amount of time. And for many of us it is worth its weight in gold...

Haiku encourages slow reading in order to better see the poetic image and feel the thought embedded in the words. Oddly enough, hockey is quite understandable to children, and, perhaps, even to a greater extent than us adults, because their worldview is still open to everything new and is not filled with cliches and various restrictions. Children can subtly sense the beauty of words and lines, and sometimes understand us better emotional condition, conveyed in a few short words.

Haiku, thanks to its bright poetic images, are great for drawing as themes. Especially if it concerns seasonal themes. Haiku can be a striking addition to classes on speech development and storytelling.

Another direction in working with haiku is composing tercets. I assure you, it is very interesting and exciting. Just three lines should convey to us the mood and feelings. It seems so easy! But it was not there…

Or you can combine painting and haiku, when based on finished painting a tercet is being composed. Children really enjoy this activity. After all, writing poetry is also a game. Moreover, some of the guys quickly understood the features of the poetic form, while others needed a lot more time...

So, introducing children to haiku helps:

- expanding children's understanding of Japanese culture;

Formation grammatically correct speech, cognitive interest to word construction; the ability to convey in speech different states of an object, action, quality, relationship;

Development of imagination, logical and associative thinking, emotional responsiveness to words and speech in general;

Fostering a love for the native language, its imagery, expressiveness and beauty.

We bring to your attention a small exhibition of our drawings and haiku for them, composed by the guys.