Week 01: The New Year

January 01 – January 07 is the first week of 2024 in the Gregorian calendar.  The Solar Terms included in this week are Winter Solstice (Dec 21 – Jan 05) and Minor Cold (Jan 05 – Jan 19). The micro-seasons for this week are “Beneath the Snow the Wheat Sprouts” (Jan 01 – Jan 05) and “The Water Dropwort Flourishes (Jan 06 – Jan 10)

The haiku selected for this week are written by Bahso, Issa, Buson, Reichhold, Kerouac, and Toshio. 

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The 24 Solar Terms 

The 24 solar terms were created by farmers in ancient China  (206 BCE and 24 CE) to help guide their agricultural activities. Each solar term is 15 days long and is based on the climate around the city Xi’an, which was the capital of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE). ⁽¹⁾

This week, we complete the Solar Term of Winter Solstice (Dec 21 – Jan 05) and enter the Solar Term of Minor Cold (Jan 05 – Jan 19). Winter Solstice is the 22nd and Minor Cold is the 23rd Solar Term of the year.  

Minor Cold

Minor Cold is the beginning of the midwinter season.  At this time, the ground and most of the rivers have frozen.⁽²⁾  Even though, Minor Cold proceeds the solar term Major Cold, Minor Cold is often the coldest part of the year.  There is even an old saying that goes, “Freeze in Minor Cold, melt in Major Cold”.⁽³⁾  

Foods for Minor Cold

Since it is so cold outside, the traditional culinary advice is to eat foods like pepper, cinnamon, leeks, and dishes such as Laba porridge.  Laba porridge, also known as Laba congee, is made from “20 kinds of nuts, cereals and dried fruits.”⁽²⁾  The porridge is made on the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, simmered overnight, and then eaten the next day.  For those who are interested, here is a recipe for Laba porridge from AsianCookingMom.com

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The 72 Seasons

The 72-season calendar was established in 1685 by Japanese astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai.  Each season lasts for about 5 days and offers “a poetic journey through the Japanese year in which the land awakens and blooms with life and activity before returning to slumber.”⁽⁴⁾

The micro-seasons for this week are “Beneath the Snow the Wheat Sprouts” (Jan 01 – Jan 05) and “The Water Dropwort Flourishes (Jan 06 – Jan 10).

“Under the thick snow, wheat is quietly staring to germinate in anticipation for the spring”

72 Season App

About Wheat

Archeological records show that wheat was cultivated for human use as early as 900 BCE in parts of the Middle East.⁽⁵⁾ Triticum aestivum, also known as common wheat or bread wheat, is one of the most widely grown wheat crops and it makes up about 95% of global wheat production.⁽⁵⁾ Wheat flour goes into a everything from cakes, cookies, pasta, to Yorkshire pudding and beer. 

Categories of Wheat

Wheat is usually separated into two categories based on its growing season: Spring Wheat and Winter Wheat.⁽⁶⁾

• Spring Wheat is wheat that is planted in early spring and is harvested in the late summer

• Winter Wheat is wheat that is planted in late autumn/winter and harvested in early summer.  The micro-season “Beneath the Snow the Wheat Sprouts”, would be referring to the growing cycle of winter wheat.  

Classes of Winter Wheat

In the United States, six major classes of wheat encompass over 200 different varieties of wheat crop.⁽⁷⁾  The classes are divided according to growth habitats (winter wheat or spring wheat), grain color, and texture.  The classes of winter wheat are:

Hard Red Winter Wheat

Hard Red Winter Wheat is typically grown in the Great Plains states which include Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska.  Hard Red Winter Wheat usually completes its life cycle in the spring.  This wheat produces flour that is good for yeast bread and rolls.

Hard Red Spring Wheat

Hard Red Spring Wheat is typically grown in the northern states of Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota.  This wheat flour is often used in designer breads, bagels, and croissants.  Hard Red Spring Wheat is sometimes called the “aristocrat of wheat”.⁽⁸⁾

Soft Red Winter Wheat 

Soft Red Winter Wheat is grown in locations east of the Mississippi River.  This wheat produces flour that has a low protein content and is used for flatbreads, cookies, crackers, pretzels, and pastries.

The other classes of wheat are Soft White Wheat, Hard White Wheat, and Durum

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Astronomical Season

January 07, the last day of week 01 of 2024.  Jan 07 is 17 days past the winter solstice and 72 days until the spring equinox (March 19, 2024). This means we are still in early astronomical winter.  

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Seasonal Haiku

As we talked about last week, New Year’s is its own season in haiku. The authors of  The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words give us this explanation of the season.

“In the old lunar calendar, the 1st day of the 1st month coincided roughly with the beginning of spring, and hence the New Year’s celebrations and observances took place during the first two weeks of spring. Many season words today still carry both meanings for traditionalists. But with the adoption of the Gregorian commercial calendar in 1873, the haikai community decided on a compromise: Season words specific to celebrating the New Year moved into a special “fifth season” (roughly equivalent to 1-15 Jan), and those that pertained to early spring (roughly, Feb) stayed in early spring.”⁽⁹⁾ 

Higginson also tells us that “In Basho’s day The New Year roughly coincided with the beginning of spring”.⁽¹⁰⁾ This means that poets of Basho’s time, and those poets who wrote before 1873, are talking about early February when they say New Year’s.  

Seasonal words found in New Year’s section of The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words include the “first” of many things including “first day”, “first sun”, and “first sky”.  Then there are the first animals including the first song of the sparrow, the first cry of the raven, and the first crowing of the rooster.  

Under the Observance category of New Year’s, the first visit to a temple and the first draw of water are also relevant seasonal references. 

In A Dictionary of Haiku, Jane Reichhold also includes a New Year’s category. She includes “first new day” as a relevant season word, along with “New Year’s Day” , “New Year’s dream”, and “New Year’s breakfast”.

Now with all this in mind, let’s read some haiku. 

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(For the haiku from Basho, Issa, and Buson, I will be pulling haiku that focus on New Year’s Day without a specific focus on spring as per the post-1873 guidance.)

Basho

first day of the year
I think longingly of the sun 
on those paddy waters 
(translated by Makoto Ueda) 

New Year’s Day 
looking back I am lonely 
as an autumn evening 
(translated by Jane Reichhold)

Issa

the woods are dark
but out and about...
the year's first crow
(translated by David G. Lanoue)

rising into
the year's first sky...
tea smoke
(translated by David G. Lanoue)

in the year's first dream
my home village...
tears
(translated by David G. Lanoue)

Buson

The warbler’s
crude aspect —
a first song
(translated by Allan Persinger)

The new year morning sun
 brightly reflects off spears decorated
 by sardine heads
(translated by Allan Persinger)

Reichhold

New Year's morning
the first day begins
in the same dream

New Year's breakfast
peeled cold eggs
snowflakes

Kerouac

Hand in hand in a red valley
    with the universal schoolteacher–
the first morning

(Kerouac wrote some notes about this haiku that make me think it was written in April instead of on New Year’s.  But, I think it can work here)

Toshio 

rubbing my eyes
over and over again–
New Year’s morning 
(retrieved from Haiku Enlightenment)

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Haiku Invitation

This week’s haiku invitation is to write a haiku or senryu referencing a New Year’s first.

Share your haiku in the comments below, or post on your page and link back. I can’t wait to read what you write!  

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Thank You!

About the Haiku

Basho’s haiku were retrieved from “Matsuo Bashō’s haiku poems in romanized Japanese with English translations” Editor: Gábor Terebess.  Issa’s haiku were retrieved from David G. Lanoue’s Haiku Guy.  Buson’s haiku was retrieved from Foxfire:The Selected Poems of Yosa Buson. Jane Reichhold’s haiku were retrieved from Dictionary of Haiku.  Kerouac’s haiku was retrieved from Kerouac’s  Book of Haikus.  Toshio’s haiku was retrieved from Haiku Enlightenment by Gabriel Rosenstock. 

Resources:

1. “24 Solar Terms”; ChinaHighlights.com
2. 24 Solar Terms: 5 things you may not know about Minor Cold; ChinaDaily.com
3. 72 Seasons App
4. “Japan’s 72 Microseasons”; Nippon.com
5. “Wheat”; Wikipedia
6. Terri Queck-Matzie; “Framing 101; Growing Wheat”: Successful Farming
7. Randy L. Englund; “Wheat Classes, History, and Breeding Timelines”: South Dakota State University
8. “Six Classes of Wheat”; EatWheat.org
9. “The New Year”; The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words. Selected by Kenkichi Yamamoto. Translated by Kris Young Kondo and William J. Higginson
10.  Higginson, William J. The Haiku Seasons: Poetry of the Natural World