March 8, 2020.
~
the sun set behind
a traveling monk
tall in the withered field
Initially a prose writer, Masaoka Shiki is considered by many the first poet of modern haiku. 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. Shiki died of tuberculosis in 1902, at the age of 34.
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