The Literature Department of the Romanian Mint Rubbing Association has been involved in the research of Oriental poetry in the past couple of months. The main focus was the haiku, a brief poem traditional to the Chinese and Japanese cultures. In more recent times this form of poetry has enjoyed unexpected success in other parts of the world as well. Presented below is the first mint rubbing haiku produced by our Literature Department:

mint is everywhere
see how beautiful it is
why not rub it then?

A haiku has just one stanza with three lines. The structure of the poem is a rigid one: the first line has 5 syllables, the second has 7 syllables and the third has 5 syllables. Generally there is no rhyme. Here is another sample of our haiku work:
when you rub mint hard
you really need a break too
so try burning gas

In most cases a haiku poem uses striking images from nature, as seen below:

you are working hard
busy just like a honey bee
now it's time to rub

Another form of classic Japanese poetry is Tanka. A tanka has a similarly rigid structure, with one stanza and five lines. The number of syllables on each line is once again pre-defined (5, 7, 5, 7 and 7). A tanka focuses on a single event, image, setting or mood. Here's a sample tanka created by our Literature Department:

once there lived a man
he was so calm and happy
full of peace and joy
nothing ever bothered him
he had so much mint to rub

Our research was concluded with the study of the koan - the insightful Zen story. A more elaborate definition follows: "stories and verses that present fundamental perspectives on life and no-life, the nature of the self, the relationship of the self to the earth - and how these interweave. Such stories and verses are called koans, and their study is the process of realising their truths." (Aitken, 1990).

In this particular field we benefitted from the help of an anonymous mint rubber, who posted a wonderful koan on the mintrubbing forum:

Zen Master Dameyamaji no Bakayaro once asked a student, "How can a man hanging from the eaves of the Shogun's palace by his teeth, with a sword in one hand and an empty sake cask in the other, rub mint?" The student replied, "How the hell should I know?" Upon hearing this, Bakayaro knew that the student was truly enlightened, so he beat the student to death with a tea whisk.

For additional information, follow the links below (pages open in new windows):
- how to write haiku
- tanka
- Koan Study Pages