Although the language changed, my fundamental approach to writing haiku in English remained the same as in my Japanese compositions; I continued to focus on the five senses, small and ordinary details, and the formation of a single, vivid central image. My goal was again to create a “snapshot” of everyday life through the accumulation of concrete sensory impressions. However, beginning in English rather than in Japanese did not produce the same results. English encouraged clearer subjects, more explicit sequencing, and greater narrative visibility, which shaped the way each moment unfolded on the page. By beginning in English, I was able to observe how the same shasei-based process behaves differently across languages, even when the underlying compositional intent remains the same.

For example, in the rice haiku, the subject “rice” directly grounds the scene, and the immediate warmth of the rice and the rising steam allows the reader to inhabit the scene directly. Writing about the humid, steamy air that “sticks” to my face like the sticky rice itself, I tried to merge tactile and visual sensations into a single experiential image. By focusing on the small and concrete details, I sought to emulate a snapshot of everyday life. In this haiku, the focus on the culmination of details reflects the essence of shasei. 

In the crystals/tree haiku, I aimed to capture the tactile cold of winter, as well as its visual cues of ice moving through the air. The three lines again create a progression, where the first line establishes the frozen and desperate state, which then moves onto visual and auditory details. By using words like “cling” or “rattled,” I hoped to convey not only the physical interaction of ice with the branch and wind, but also the fragile, tense feeling of winter. The English language here allows me to make this progression explicit, by establishing clarity and the step by step unfolding of the sensation. 

The introduction of movement and depth into a scene can be seen in the clock haiku as well. Starting with the clock ticking on the wall, it then zooms out to the surrounding—“footsteps echo down the hall”—introducing movement and depth into the scene. The final line then transforms sound into a metaphor for spatial emptiness, creating a quiet and soft yet suspenseful image (“silence stretches thin”), giving a sense of time unfolding. Again, the English allows for the flow and sequencing of the narrative, and uses the summation of details (metaphors, senses) to create the concrete image.

In my Japanese counterparts of such poems, however, I noticed again, that I was able to convey the same image without being explicit about something. Specifically, in this batch of haiku, rather than guiding the reader through a step-by-step unfolding of a scene, I felt like the Japanese versions were able to present images more simultaneously as fragments, and allowing space for the reader’s imagination, as well as presenting the image that I had hoped to.

For example, in the clock haiku, while the English moves from ticking to footsteps to the abstraction of silence stretching thin, I was able to compress these elements even while excluding parts of the English counterparts. Rather than reproducing the full narrative, I was able to isolate the most immediate things—the clock on the wall (壁時計), the echoing hall (響く廊下), and then silence (静けさ)—allowing them to coexist within a single instant. This emphasizes the simultaneity and stillness of the image, as well as being ambiguous enough to leave space for what the reader may fill in—such as with the footsteps that were explicitly mentioned in the English version, but not in the Japanese.

A similar contrast appears in the kitchen haiku—in English, the scene unfolds dynamically: the pan sizzles, the egg pops, and the kitchen fills with heat. The verbs establish a clear temporal flow, and the image of the scene grows progressively. In my Japanese rendering however, the scene becomes spatially organized and appears as one rather than as steps within a process. The English offers movement and buildup, while the Japanese offers pieces of the whole simultaneously—the rice, the heat, the moisture.

In the crystal and tree haiku, again, while the English allowed me to layer multiple sensory details through descriptive accumulation, the Japanese version allows for the scene to be reduced to a set of start images stripped of explanatory verbs and coloring. Rather than building atmosphere through layering, the ambiguous, yet immediate details allow the scene to emerge naturally in the reader’s perception. The ice clinging to the branches, the swaying of the twigs, and the silver light exist simultaneously, creating a sense of stillness. This shift demonstrates how Japanese haiku relies on suggestion and compression, inviting the reader to inhabit the scene directly, rather than guiding them through a temporal progression as English often does.

Again, as previously encountered, I noticed that while I had to specify the subject in the English versions due to grammatical requirements (using words like “my” or “the”), in Japanese, the subject can be implied or fluid. This difference reinforces a broader pattern I observed between the languages: English naturally encourages explicitness and sequential buildup, guiding the reader step by step through the unfolding scene. Japanese, in contrast, allows for more simultaneity and compression, presenting images and sensations together without the need for linear explanation due to its use of particles to mark grammatical function, allowing flexible sequencing of clauses. The subject’s fluidity contributes to this effect, as the focus can shift seamlessly between observer, object, and environment, creating an immediacy and openness that English more rarely permits.

This fluidity is further supported by other features of Japanese haiku. The structure emphasizes compression and the significance of each phrase, with each line functioning simultaneously as image, sensation, and sometimes mood. Kanji provide additional layers of meaning and visual density; a single character can evoke multiple associations and, because many kanji are derived from pictographs or shared roots, they can visually and conceptually connect elements across a poem. Specifically, in the snow haiku, the characters for snow (雪), frost (樹氷), and cold (寒さ) immediately convey both physical and aesthetic information, allowing the reader to grasp the scene’s essence in a single glance. In this way, the Japanese version creates a true “snapshot” of the moment, compressing multiple elements into one unified image. Although the English counterpart includes similar elements – snow, cold, and frost – it tends to unfold sequentially to create a narrative: the reader first registers the snow, then the biting cold, and finally the frost glinting on the trees. This step-by-step buildup produces a sense of temporal progression rather than a single moment. In contrast, the Japanese haiku’s kanji allow all elements to coexist simultaneously, giving the reader a direct sense of texture, temperature, and visual beauty. 

Overall, my experience “translating” haiku from one language to another revealed distinct advantages and limitations for each language. English encourages clarity and sequential flow, allowing for the gradual accumulation of sensory details while evoking a certain mood. This makes it easier to guide the reader through a scene, but it can reduce the ambiguity and immediacy that Japanese naturally provides. The Japanese counterparts, by contrast, favor compression and density, allowing multiple elements to coexist in a single instant. This quality more successfully creates the Shiki-esque “snapshot effect,” inviting the reader to inhabit the scene directly. While Japanese may not emphasize narrative progression in the same way English does, it leaves space for the reader to complete the image, to fill in the nuances between the words.

This process also made me realize that much of haiku’s power lies in what is left unsaid as much as in what is explicitly stated. The simplicity of the form and the deliberate choice to include certain details while omitting others – much like in translation – creates space for the reader’s imagination. In other words, I realized that the silence between words – the spaces for the reader to inhabit – is as important as the images themselves. For example, by only mentioning the ice cream or the bed, the reader is left to fill in the void. They see the single item, but how they complete the image or relate to the haiku is entirely up to them. Working across languages highlighted this dynamic, deepening my appreciation of haiku as a form that balances both suggestion (ambiguity) and immediacy. 

Haiku originated as the opening part (hokku) of a larger genre called renga. Renga, a genre of linked poetry in which two or more poets contributed alternating sections, developed from the earlier form of tanka. Haiku first emerged in Japanese literature during the 17th century, typically restricted to objective descriptions of nature, often suggesting one of the seasons, while evoking a subtle yet unstated emotion (7).

Classical Japanese, unlike English, lacks grammatical articles and does not require explicit subject marking for sentences to function, as observed in my translations earlier. For example, in English, omitting “an” or “the” or leaving out the subject can make a sentence grammatically incomplete, whereas in Japanese, such elements can often be left unsaid without disrupting meaning. Furthermore, Japanese relies on morae rather than syllables (e.g., あ、か、さ、た、な), which reinforces brevity and encourages concision. This allows haiku to compress multiple layers of meaning into a small number of sounds or characters without feeling incomplete.

Kanji also plays a crucial role in this compression. Historically, kanji were adapted from Chinese logographs beginning around the 5th century. Over time, Japanese also developed kokuji (characters invented in Japan) and compound readings of kanji, allowing a single character to carry multiple meanings or associations. Because many kanji originated as pictographs, a single character can evoke visual, temporal, and emotional layers simultaneously. This makes Japanese uniquely capable of condensing complex imagery into very short expressions, where there is little room for elaboration. Additionally, Japanese syntax is highly flexible, allowing for omission of subjects, flexible ordering of subject, verb, and objects, and the dropping of particles. These features help create ambiguity and open-endedness, so a haiku can depict a scene – for example, a (frog) jumping into a (pond) or the (wind) rustling (leaves) – without specifying, giving the ability to place the reader directly in the sensory moment.

Matsuo Bashō, who mastered and popularized haiku in Japan, exemplifies this compression and multiplicity. He is said to have elevated a few carefully chosen phrases into the “sacred realm of poetry” (8), demonstrating how brevity can evoke a full sensory and emotional experience. In The Complete Haiku of Bashō (8), the reader can observe how Bashō’s haiku illustrates the linguistic and cultural features of Japanese; flexible word order, subject omission, and kanji – and how these allow a single moment to be experienced simultaneously in multiple dimensions. These features help explain why haiku naturally developed in Japan and in Japanese, and why attempts to fully “translate” it into English must navigate the limitations of a very different language system. 

Additionally, traditional Japanese aesthetics such as wabi-sabi (侘び寂び), the beauty in imperfection and simplicity, and mono no aware (物の哀れ) (9), the awareness of the transience of all things, play into this compressed form, emphasizing the immediate (and fleeting) moment rather than narrative development. This encourages poets to focus on fleeting moments or details, while omitting others. This omission itself is an aesthetic choice; what is left unsaid is as important as what is included, allowing the reader to sense absence, impermanence, and subtlety, as well as leaving space for the reader’s own imagination. Rather than relying on elaborate descriptions, haiku can highlight the subtle beauty of a subject while leaving much of the scene ambiguous. In doing so, haiku often captures a fleeting moment, presenting it fully within a single instant. This sensitivity to temporality is further enhanced by the Japanese language itself; kanji can carry multiple layers of meaning, and the flexible syntax allows a scene to exist without anchoring it to a specific observer or even a fixed time frame. These features align perfectly with the compressed and suggestive nature of Japanese, where each phrase or character can evoke multiple dimensions simultaneously, and the omission of subjects or particles leaves space for the reader’s imagination.

More recently, In Praise of Shadows (陰翳礼讃) by Junichiro Tanizaki (10), published in 1933, brings this perspective to the public. Like the concept of wabi-sabi, Tanizaki emphasizes the beauty found in subtlety and the interplay of light and shadow, resonating with the same aesthetic principles that shape haiku. Just as haiku relies on suggestion and what is left unsaid, Tanizaki highlights how shadows create depth in everyday life. Both works celebrate ambiguity and restraint, inviting the reader to engage actively and appreciate both what is present and what is absent in a scene. By considering haiku through both traditional aesthetic values and more contemporary reflections like Tanizaki’s, we can observe a broader cultural tendency toward compression and subtlety, which helps explain why haiku developed so naturally in Japan and throughout its history.

While English may approximate this form and imagery of haiku, its grammar and syntax limit the simultaneity and ambiguity that the Japanese language naturally is able to afford. Instead, what emerged in English poetry, such as Beowulf  (around the 8th century) (11) or in later years the works of William Shakespeare (1600s), rely heavily on alliteration or oral performance (which does find a counterpart in Japanese literature, specifically in war epics such as the Heike monogatari). Oftentimes, poets would favor rhyme and metaphorical elaboration, creating meaning through dramatic narrative progression or the flow of a story (12), rather than the compressed snapshots that are found in haiku. This tendency in English poetry reflects linguistic and cultural influences, as the English language requires specific rules (such as subjects, articles, etc.), but also because much of the oral and performative traditions of early English literature. Storytelling or moral instruction, and that through dramatic expression, were highly valued, contrasting sharply with the aesthetics that shaped Japanese haiku.

In more recent years, poets such as Ezra Pound have tackled shorter forms of poetry. Ezra Pound attempts to capture these qualities in his poem “In a Station of the Metro” (The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough) (13), which he calls a “hokku like sentence.” Much like Shiki, Pound’s short poem, inspired by a fleeting impression of the Paris metro, mirrors the haiku concept of immediacy and a single moment. However, even in this compressed form, I believe that the structure of English, as well as the use of particles or subjects, ultimately focuses on clarity. By contrast, I believe Japanese haiku can present multiple elements simultaneously (both through structure and kanji), allowing for both a more multifaceted and ambiguous experience. This mirrors my own translation experiment: English tended to encourage explicitness and the unfolding of a scene, whereas Japanese permits images and sensations to coexist in a single instant while leaving space for the reader’s imagination. Thus, Pound’s work may illustrate both the possibilities and the limitations of adapting haiku aesthetics into English, highlighting how languages shape poetry and poetic form.

In conclusion, this project revealed that haiku is far more than a brief poetic form; it is a lens through which to perceive the world. Examining both Japanese haiku and English-language adaptations, it becomes clear that the form and impact of a poem are deeply intertwined with the language in which it is composed. Japanese haiku, due to the language structure and aesthetic values, is able to achieve compression, simultaneity, and ambiguity, allowing poets to capture fleeting moments while leaving space for the reader’s imagination. In contrast, English poetry – whether historically or modern – tends to necessitate progression or clarity. Ultimately, this comparison illustrates that much of haiku’s distinctive power, in addition to its form and language, lies not only in what is said but also in what is left unsaid. Haiku shapes not only poetry but the very way we attend to and experience the world.  While my perception of the world may not have fundamentally changed, this practice has given me a greater appreciation for simplicity and the freedom offered in haiku – and I certainly hope to continue this practice and see where it takes me.