HOKKU
*“‘Hokku’ (seventeen-syllable poem) in Japanese mind might be compared with a tiny star, I dare say, carrying the whole sky at its back. It is like a slightly-open door, where you may steal into the realm of poesy. It is simply a guiding lamp. Its value depends on how much it suggests.”
(Yone Noguchi, fromThe Pilgrimage,published by Elkin Mathews, London, Eng.)