Saijiki and kiyose
Japanese haiku poets often use a saijiki , a book like a dictionary or almanac for kigo. An entry in a saijiki usually includes a description of the kigo itself, as well as a list of similar or related words, and a few examples of haiku that include that kigo. A kiyose is similar, but contains only lists of kigo. Modern saijiki and kiyose are divided into the four seasons and New Year, with some containing a further section for seasonless (muki) topics. Each section is divided into a standard set of categories, each containing the relevant kigo. The most common categories are:
- The season (時候 jikō)
- The sky and heavens (天文 tenmon)
- The earth (地理 chiri)
- Humanity (生活 seikatsu)
- Observances (行事 gyōji)
- Animals (動物 dōbutsu)
- Plants (植物 shokubutsu)
This is a list of both Japanese and non-Japanese kigo. If the kigo is a Japanese word, or if there is a Japanese translation in parentheses next to the English kigo, then the kigo can be found in most major Japanese saijiki.
[note: An asterisk (*) after the Japanese name for the kigo denotes an external link to a saijiki entry for the kigo with example haiku that is part of the "Japanese haiku: a topical dictionary" website.]
The traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar which identifies years, months, and days according to astronomical phenomena. In China, it is defined by the Chinese national standard GB/T 33661-2017, "Calculation and Promulgation of the Chinese Calendar", issued by the Standardization Administration of China on May 12, 2017.
The Japanese New Year is an annual festival with its own customs. Since 1873, the official Japanese New Year has been celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar, on January 1 of each year, New Year's Day. However, some traditional events of the Japanese New Year are partially celebrated on the first day of the year on the modern Tenpō calendar, the last official lunisolar calendar which was used until 1872 in Japan.
Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor. The written form starts with the year, then the month and finally the day, coinciding with the ISO 8601 standard. For example, February 16, 2003, can be written as either 2003年2月16日 or 平成15年2月16日. 年 reads nen and means "year", 月 reads gatsu (がつ) and means "month" and finally 日 (usually) reads nichi and means "day".
Lunar New Year is the beginning of a lunar calendar or lunisolar calendar year, whose months are moon cycles. The event is celebrated by numerous cultures in various ways at diverse dates.
Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of the term varies according to local climate, cultures and customs. When it is spring in the Northern Hemisphere, it is autumn in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. At the spring equinox, days and nights are approximately twelve hours long, with daytime length increasing and nighttime length decreasing as the season progresses until the Summer Solstice in June and December.
The Ghost Festival or Hungry Ghost Festival, also known as the Zhongyuan Festival in Taoism and Yulanpen Festival in Buddhism, is a traditional Taoist and Buddhist festival held in certain East Asian countries. According to the Chinese calendar, the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month.
The sexagenary cycle, also known as the Stems-and-Branches or ganzhi, is a cycle of sixty terms, each corresponding to one year, thus a total of sixty years for one cycle, historically used for recording time in China and the rest of the East Asian cultural sphere. It appears as a means of recording days in the first Chinese written texts, the Shang oracle bones of the late second millennium BC. Its use to record years began around the middle of the 3rd century BC. The cycle and its variations have been an important part of the traditional calendrical systems in Chinese-influenced Asian states and territories, particularly those of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, with the old Chinese system still in use in Taiwan, and to a lesser extent, in Mainland China.
The Festival of Seven Herbs or Nanakusa no sekku is the long-standing Japanese custom of eating seven-herb rice porridge on January 7 (Jinjitsu); one of the Gosekku.
Kigo is a word or phrase associated with a particular season, used in traditional forms of Japanese poetry. Kigo are used in the collaborative linked-verse forms renga and renku, as well as in haiku, to indicate the season referred to in the stanza. They are valuable in providing economy of expression.
Kobayashi Issa was a Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest of the Jōdo Shinshū. He is known for his haiku poems and journals. He is better known as simply Issa (一茶), a pen name meaning Cup-of-tea. He is regarded as one of the four haiku masters in Japan, along with Bashō, Buson and Shiki — "the Great Four."
Princess Shikishi or Shokushi was a Japanese classical poet, who lived during the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. She was the third daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa. In 1159, Shikishi, who did not marry, went into service at the Kamo Shrine in Kyoto. She left the shrine after some time, and in her later years became a Buddhist nun.
The September equinox is the moment when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading southward. Because of differences between the calendar year and the tropical year, the September equinox may occur anytime from September 21 to 24.
The March equinox or northward equinox is the equinox on the Earth when the subsolar point appears to leave the Southern Hemisphere and cross the celestial equator, heading northward as seen from Earth. The March equinox is known as the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and as the autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere.
Tsukimi or Otsukimi (お月見), meaning, "moon-viewing", are Japanese festivals honoring the autumn moon, a variant of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The celebration of the full moon typically takes place on the 15th day of the eighth month of the traditional Japanese calendar, known as Jūgoya; the waxing moon is celebrated on the 13th day of the ninth month, known as Jūsan'ya. These days normally fall in September and October of the modern solar calendar.
Traditional Chinese calendar divides a year into 24 solar terms. Lìchūn, Risshun, Ipchun, or Lập xuân is the 1st solar term. It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 315° and ends when it reaches the longitude of 330°. It more often refers in particular to the day when the Sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 315°. In the Gregorian calendar, it usually begins around February 4 and ends around February 18. It's also the beginning of a sexagenary cycle.
Qīngmíng, Seimei, Cheongmyeong or Thanh minh, is the name of the 5th solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, which divides a year into 24 solar terms. In space partitioning, Qingming begins when the sun reaches the celestial longitude of 15° and ends when it reaches the longitude of 30°. It more often refers in particular to the day when the sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 15°, usually on April 5.
Renri is the 7th day of Zhengyue, the first month in the traditional Chinese calendar. According to Chinese customs, Renri was the day human beings were created. It is celebrated not only in China, but also in the surrounding region influenced by Chinese culture.
A saijiki is a list of kigo used in haiku and related forms of poetry. An entry in a saijiki usually includes a description of the kigo itself, as well as a list of similar or related words, and some examples of haiku that include that kigo. A kiyose (季寄せ) is similar, but does not contain sample poems. Modern saijiki and kiyose are divided into the four seasons and New Year, with some containing a further section for seasonless topics. Each seasonal section is further divided into a standard set of categories, each containing a list of relevant kigo. The most common categories are:
Momoko Kuroda was a Japanese haiku poet and essayist.
Reiwa is the current era of Japan's official calendar. It began on 1 May 2019, the day on which Emperor Akihito's elder son, Naruhito, ascended the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan. The day before, Emperor Akihito abdicated the Chrysanthemum Throne, marking the end of the Heisei era. The year 2019 corresponds with Heisei 31 from 1 January through 30 April, and with Reiwa 1 from 1 May. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan explained the meaning of Reiwa to be "beautiful harmony".
