Black & Purple Grapes [naviarhaiku619 - almost black]

16/11/2025 6 min
Black & Purple Grapes [naviarhaiku619 - almost black]

Listen "Black & Purple Grapes [naviarhaiku619 - almost black]"

Episode Synopsis

almost black
deepening purple
ripe grapes

Regarded as the father of contemporary haiku, Masaoka Shiki was a poet and literary critic during the Meiji period Japan.

He advocated realistic observation by “sketching” (shasei) poems and going out into nature with notebooks, thus abandoning the traditional subjects of haiku of the time. His advice for an aspiring poet was, “Use both imaginary pictures and real ones, but prefer the real ones.”

Haiku by Masaoka Shiki

Picture by Hassan Anayi