nikki bungaku

The heritage of the nikki bungaku (poetic or literary diary) can be traced at least to the 8th Century. The highly elliptical, vibrantly allusive, temporally present traits of Japanese literature — familiar to us from the Japanese novel (our form, given back to us, transformed) and such poetic forms as haiku — were nurtured in the interstices of the nikki. There, time, made intimate with being, is entrusted to craft a form for it ...

-- Victor Muñoz The Journal as Art: "Impossible Text"