However, Issa's later years were filled with sorrows, when his wife and other children died and his property was destroyed by fire. Japan's most popular unrhymed poetic form. Haiku consist of 17 syllables arranged in three lines containing five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Traditionally the haiku focused on the natural world, the fleeting moment, but then it became a vehicle to express a wide range of of attitudes about almost any subject. Haiku's emphasis on the immediate and concrete influenced early 20th century Imaginism in Europe and America, especially through the efforts of Ezra Pound .
Tanka focuses on the essence of one static event, image, mood.