Αφιέρωμα στο Ελληνικό Χαϊκού
πηγή: εδώ
πηγή: εδώ
drowsy water
motionless in your eyes
a golden evening
-- D. I. Antoniou (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
the probability
of having summer’ s glow
in mid-December
-- Dionyssis Kapsalis (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
little child
a handful of snowflakes
takes its time to melt
-- Sophia Karipidis (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
shady shrubs
the wind reaching
the roots
inside the mirrors,
the eyes of the dead,
weeping
-- Elias Kefalas (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
barren night,
what can an evening star
do for you?
I still remember
a child’s hand, its shadow
on white flowers
memories of algae
hold me, tell me
You are still alive
-- Tassos Korfis (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
blind falcon
his cry blurs
the eye of the sun
I ask the stars
not to shine so brightly
they disappear
petrified trees
a bronze bird
on each branch
-- Nikos Ladas (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
the masts and the stars
riding a seesaw
all night long
first nightingale
cutting the edges
of silence
-- Zissimos Lorentzatos (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
while you ’re tight asleep,
the moon gives me
a derisive look
only the mirror
can stand the sight of you
without breaking down
-- John Patilis (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
having killed a cicada,
the sparrow
keeps on singing
remaining silent
so I can hear you,
the seaside nightingale
-- Yorgis Pavlopoulos (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
nightfall
the weight of
my brother’s shadow
-- Antonis Pillas (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
clearing autumn leaves
off the footpath
a black bug plays dead
winter lamplight
scooping a moth
out of the honey jar
abandoned wheat fields
a snake slides across
the threshing floor
town clock
strikes the hour
a dog sighs in his sleep
afternoon clouds
a shadowplay on the
mountain slope
-- Rosie Roumeliotis
no boats
in the harbour
fish stand sentinel
thorny branch
on its tip
a butterfly
all the footprints
have vanished in the sand
sounds blend with silence
red buckle
on the garment of darkness,
a little moon
a tinge of sunshine
on the mountain slopes
wearing a silk shawl
-- Zoe Savina (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
twilight or sunshine,
the jasmine
remains white
empty chairs
the statues returned
to another museum
pensive woman
the weight of her breasts
reflected in the mirror
-- Giorgos Seferis (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
sea foam
and the rainbow
the fish dwells under them
-- Monk Simeon (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
full moon
an aspirin melting
in my glass
little blade of grass,
one day you’ll be
taller than me
a frightened giant,
here I stand by your side,
o daisy!
-- Christos Toumanidis (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
The History of Haiku in Greece by Christos Toumanidis
The first mentioning of haiku in Greece and in Cyprus can be traced back to 1904 when a theoretical article about haiku by Spyridonos De Viazi appeared in the Iris of Athens magazine. Some 21 years later, in 1925, another Athenian magazine Lycabette published six original haiku by the poet G. Stavropoulos, which were called triplets. Later that year, N. Hagier-Boufidis published five of his hai-kai in the magazine called New Art; the texts appeared under the assumed name, Isandros Aris, and were accompanied by a short explanatory essay describing this particular kind of poetry. Next year, the Cypriot poet Pavlos Krineos-Michaelidis published ten of his hai-kai triplets in the magazine titled The Big Greek Encyclopedia.
The next period in the development of Greek haiku started in 1940. That year, Giorgios Seferis, who later won the Novel Prize for literature, published his poetry collection titled Exercise books, which included sixteen of his haiku. Seferis was a highly influential poet, and his haiku set the course for the later generations of Greek haiku writers.
However not much happened until 1969, when Zisimos Lorentzatos, a literary critic, essayist and poet, got his book Alphabet published. This was the first full-length collection of haiku poems that ever appeared in Greece. In three years time, i.e. in 1972, another haiku collection followed; this one by D. I. Antoniou; it was titled Hai-Kai and Tanka.
The modern period in Greek haiku writing began in 1972. Such poets as Tasos Korfis, George Pavlopoulos, Anestis Evangelou, Giannis Patilis, Argyris Hionis, Zoe Savina, P. Ioannidou-Stavrou, Nikos Ladas, Dionysis Kapsalis, Elias Kefalas and Panayiotis Kapodistrias produced fine examples of the genre. As it happened, I was the editor of the first ever Anthology of Greek haiku published in 1996, and now awaiting its second, enlarged and updated edition.
In 2007, the Greek Haiku Society was founded. It is a cultural association that was founded to facilitate a further development of the genre in Greece and get more people involved in haiku writing. The Society organised several haiku exhibitions in Athens and in other Greek cities. It now has a small publishing house. Its first publication was The Bridge of Rhymes (2010), a bilingual haiku collection by two poets, Millianov Kalupi of Albania and myself. The Greek Haiku Society has recently created its own site (http://www.haiku.gr) which is to be 