Hokku
Quick answer: Hokku meaning: the opening verse of Japanese linked poetry, its duties of season and greeting, and how it became the modern haiku under Masaoka Shiki.
Hokku is the opening verse of a Japanese linked-verse sequence, a stanza of seventeen sound units in the pattern five, seven, five, and the direct ancestor of the modern haiku. In a renga or renku session, the hokku came first and carried real ceremonial weight: it announced the season, saluted the host or the gathering, and set the tone every later verse would answer.
Understanding the hokku clears up a common confusion. Before the 1890s, what we now casually call the haiku of Basho, Buson and Issa were, strictly speaking, hokku: opening verses, whether or not a full linked sequence followed. Masaoka Shiki cut the verse loose from collaborative poetry, declared it a standalone art, and promoted the newer name haiku for the independent poem.
How It Works
Because it opened a communal poem, the hokku had duties no other stanza carried. It needed a kigo, a season word matching the actual occasion of the gathering, and a kireji, a cutting word lending it the completeness of a finished utterance, since the poem to follow would grow out of it. Convention also asked for a bow toward the host, often oblique: praising the view from the veranda praised the person who owned the veranda. An original example imagining a hokku for an autumn meeting:
The verse compliments the gathering, fixes the season and still leaves a door open for the next poet, which is the hokku's balancing act in miniature.
Where You Will See It
Basho's most famous verses were composed as hokku, including the old pond with its frog and the crow settled on a bare branch at autumn nightfall. Anthologies of Edo-period poetry preserve thousands more by Buson, Issa and their circles. Some historically minded poets in English still use the word hokku for their work, usually to signal a stricter allegiance to seasonal, nature-centred practice than the broad modern label haiku implies.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Even if you never join a renku session, writing hokku-style is a sharpening exercise. Compose a verse fit to open something larger: give it a season, a sense of address to a real occasion, and enough openness that another poem could grow from it. Poets who begin collections, readings or even wedding toasts with a hokku-like verse are using its original function, the graceful public opening, in modern clothes.
What poets can take from this
- Include a season word tied to a real occasion, not a generic postcard image.
- Give the verse quiet completeness, but leave room for continuation.
- Practise the hidden compliment: praise a place in a way that honours its people.
- Study Basho's hokku as openings, asking what kind of poem each one invites next.
- Use hokku as a warm-up: write one before drafting any longer poem, to fix time and tone.
Try it yourself
Write a hokku to open an imagined gathering: a family reunion, a book club, a night shift. Include the season, an oblique compliment to the hosts, and an image another poet could build on.
Questions
What is the difference between hokku and haiku?
Hokku is the opening verse of a linked-verse sequence, with duties of season and greeting. Haiku is the same-shaped verse treated as an independent poem, a status formalised by Masaoka Shiki in the 1890s. Basho wrote hokku; we read them today as haiku.
Why did the hokku need a season word?
The hokku anchored a communal poem in the real time and place of its composition, so the season word acted as a timestamp and a courtesy to the gathering. Later verses could then move through other seasons and subjects.
Do poets still write hokku?
Yes, in two senses: anyone opening a renku today writes a true hokku, and some independent poets prefer the older term to signal strict seasonal practice.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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