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Yes, this 4-4-5 (or 4-4-7) rhythm has a nice ring (語呂がいい) to the ears of Japanese. Nicopedia even maintains a list of words which happen to have such 4-4-5 beats. Kitahara Hakushu's あめんぼの歌 is one of …

According to the article of おらが春, 一茶 wanted to publish his poetry book, but he died before he could do that. おらが春 was compiled and published by another person, 25 years after 一茶's death. …

One example of a block of text which is fully understandable both vertically and horizontally, is from this comedy. (And I'm afraid I know nothing more complex or sophisticated than this.) 極秘情報 (Top …

I would say this is a problem of both "the old grammar/words" and "the old orthography". A spelling reform (such as the German orthography reform of 1996) and archaic word usage are two different thin …

As far as parsing goes, my brain is intuitively seeing three "sentences" in this verse. 唐突に始まるお前の昔話(を)聞きながら、アルペジオ。 【｛（冴えないノンフィクションの結末）を握っている→｝お前の手】は、冷たいから嫌だ。 ｛（やさぐれ吐く息）に混じる声｝が、歌い出す。 Note: Some v …

In general, 巡り itself is a nice word that is suitable for poetry, but it's strongly associated with "cycling" (i.e. …

I think these are basically coincidences, although they may not be total coincidences because related words tend to share the same radical anyway (愛 and 恋 both have 心, for example). Normally, Japanese …

You are correct that 思はば in classical Japanese is basically a plain conditional ("if I think"). However, in this context, it has a mood of counterfactual assumption ("if I were to think...", "if only …

ぞ is an emphasis marker. 誰ぞ常ならむ is 誰が常であろう in modern Japanese. It is essentially a rhetorical question ("Who is eternal?"), but "Nobody is eternal" is a valid translation, too. The last two lines hav …

When 日々 means "day by day", "day-to-day" or "everyday" in modern Japanese, you can safely assume its reading is ひび. The にちにち reading is almost obsolete now, and you can find this reading only in a few …

This や is a literary particle used to add emotion or exclamation. It's common in in haiku and waka. It works like O as in "O the ancient pond", or ... as in "The ancient pond...". Note that や has seve …

Does this class of words have a name? I don't think so. Do words like "banana" and "indivisibility" have a special name in English? Are these words more poetic in a way? As wordplay, a poem that c …

It's usually written in classical Japanese or kanbun kundoku. But be aware that Yamato-kotoba is not the same as classical Japanese. Typical 詩吟 pieces have many Sino-Japanese words. Mixing 詩吟 and mod …

潮【うしお】 is a word sometimes used in poetry to describe emotional "surge". There is a word 血潮, which is usually a metaphor for strong emotion. …