【Update 2023-12-04: This is an outdated version of this article. For a more up to date version, please see: https://laspina.org/reward-of-persimmons/ 】

三千の俳句を閲し柿二つ
sanzen no haiku wo kemishi kaki futatsu

having reviewed
three thousand haiku—
two persimmons
—Shiki

(Tr. David LaSpina)

(Print by Kono Bairei)

At one time, Shiki worked as the editor of a haiku paper. We can imagine he had to weed through a lot of bad haiku in his search for good ones to publish.

Here he is promising himself a reward of persimmons if he can work his way through the pile of submissions in front of him.

Maybe a modern rewriting of this would substitute chocolate† for persimmons, but whatever motivates you to do the job, eh?

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Footnotes:

†: Or a nice stout, such as Guinness, in my case.

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Don't miss other great haiku in the Haiku of Japan series!

1. Traveling to the inn
2. Childless Woman
3. Old Dancing Butterfly
4. Seeing the Moon
5. Checking the Scarecrow
6. Skill of Insects
7. The Spider Lilies
8. A Thousand Green Mountains
9. Falling Lead Enlightenment
10. Lonely Night
11. Her Day Off
12. Autumn Crow
13. Faint Footprints
14. Alone on the Road
15. Autumn Begins
16. Early Morning Moon Viewing
17. Mistaken for a Scarecrow
18. The Galactic River
19. The Love of Cats
20. Autumn Waterfall
21. The Thief and the Moon
22. My Frozen Balls
23. Saké Waves
24. Friends with the Moon
25. Falling Flower
26. Winter Rain and No Hat
27. Sleeping Boy

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org.