“Kiyoko Uda has been at the forefront of haiku’s growing popularity among younger poets for the past several decades. She recently became president of the Modern Haiku Association-the most avant-garde of Japan’s major haiku organizations.” William J. Higginson, author, The Haiku Handbook, The Haiku Seasons, Haiku World.
Kiyoko Uda says of gendai haiku: “It should be our method that we create haiku which match the times. This is not a new idea and was prevalent in the old days; even Sanki Saito wrote about it before the association existed. Sanki believed: ‘To the difficult question ‘what is new?’ I will answer: the new means how the emotions of today’s society and people are expressed to fit the times. The haiku must be innovative in any time. So we should begin and continue to express the emotions of the people of this time and generation.” Kiyoko Uda, President, Modern Haiku Association, Tokyo, JAPAN (Gendai Haiku, S.21.10) English Translation: Akiko Takazawa
敵の数だけの野菊をもち帰る てきのかずだけののぎくをもちかえる
teki noka kazu dake no nogiku o mochi kaeru bringing back wild chrysanthemum – only the number of enemies Uda Kiyoko
(宇多 喜代子)
Richard Gilbert and Itô Yûki (trans.) 2007 Note: The Chrysanthemum Throne is the name given to the position of the Japanese Emperor; in Imperial Japan, small arms were required to be stamped with the Imperial Chrysanthemum, as they were considered the personal property of the Emperor; the chrysanthemum is the
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