The Accidental haijin: Jorge de Sena and the Poetics of Haiku

Abstract

Within the mare magnum of Sena’s poetry, the place occupied by haiku is undoubtedly discreet. Sena revisited the Japanese genre in his dual capacity of translator and poet, translating into Portuguese twenty poems by Bashô and later composing ten poems that he expressly classified as haikus. In this article, we propose to examine both the translations and the pastiches that the author wrote, seeking to justify the seduction that both the worldview and the constructive rigor underlying the poetic form have exercised upon him. In his pseudo-haikus, Sena, an accidental haijin, departed from a purely mimetic intent, opting instead for an ingenious ‘haikuisation’ of his own poetics.