A machine gun,
the low moon,
round and resounding.
Saitō Sanki (1900 – 1962) was a dentist who discovered his passion for haiku poetry in his mid-thirties, when his colleagues at the hospital in Soto Kanda convinced him to write a haiku for a collection. Later, he became one of the most important exponents of wartime haiku: he was imprisoned in 1940 during the government’s World War II persecution of controversial artists, and was officially forbidden to write until the end of the war.
This haiku is included in The Kobe Hotel, a collection that depicts the author’s wartime experiences in Kobe, the struggles of ordinary people to endure war, defeat and occupation.
Seven days to make music in response to the assigned haiku: to participate visit https://www.naviarrecords.com/about/naviar-haiku
Deadline: 12th January 2021
haiku by Saitō Sanki https://harvardreview.org/content/three-demons-haiku-by-sanki/
picture by Rosie Sun https://unsplash.com/@rosiesun