The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
3 of her haiku, 3 renku responses to Basho, and a Basho statement about her
Legend:
Words of Basho in bold
Words of other poets not bold
Sonome ("Garden Women"), daughter of a priest and official at the Ise Shrine, married to an eye doctor, known for her beauty. The six verses by Sonome in this article, plus Basho's spoken word about her, reveal the consciousness of this woman in 17th century Japan.
Sonome, is known for writing "women's haiku" such as,
Hair mussed by the child I carry in this heat
Sonome shows us the hot sweaty reality of motherhood in the sultry Japanese summer . when there is Peace in the land. When there is war or tragedy, a woman has too many big problems to concentrate on so ordinary a moment. Japanese babies look at the back of mother's neck, her nape, for hours a day; it is well-known for its erotic appeal to Japanese men.
Sonome wrote another verse about her nape.
The coolness almost to my collar bun of hair
She explores the small ordinary sensations in woman’s life, the coolness that enters between collar and hair bun. The verse is incredibly unexciting: that’s the great part about it. Because in Japan the nape is erotic, the verse has a sensual side, although for a woman with a hair bun, it is an everyday in summer experience.
Leaves rustle, dog starts to bark before a storm
That feeling in the air when a storm approaches, the low-pressure zone that dogs and even fallen leaves sense. Each of the three verses by Sonome on this page show her unusual sensitivity to the physical world.
Basho visited Sonome’s home in March of 1688 and wrote the following verse as a compliment to his hosts -- though he mentions the husband in the headnote, his poem focusing entirely on her. Sonome follows with her stanza in this two-stanza sequence.
The wife of Ichiyu:
Doorway curtain behind it, deep within northside plum
Pine needles are falling in the month of March
Noren curtains are often seen in Japan today, in the entrance to a shop or restaurant, and in doorways inside the house, where you walk through the slit in the middle of the curtain. The oku of the house is the interior or “northside” where the wife does her work. Oku is also the ordinary word for someone else’s wife, oku-san, or more politely, oku-sama. “Mrs. Interior” comes through the curtain to greet the guest and bring tea and cakes – but otherwise she stays in her “north side.” From the guest parlor Basho’s mind passes between the flaps of curtain to the interior of the house, where all is quiet and hidden, yet he knows she is there. My daughter Shanti says, “Every time I read this verse, the less innocent it sounds.” (Ichiyu’s take on Basho’s sketch of his wife is not recorded.)
New needles grow on the tips of pine branches in May, remain for a few years, then the older inner needles, in any season, turn brown and fall. Sonome observes that the pine trees in her garden are losing needles in March before they grow new ones. With this barrenness representing her humility, she responds to Basho’s praise for her inner depths. She says “Do not call me a plum blossom; I am a barren pine. Your praise I cannot accept.”
After Basho visited them in Ise, Sonome and husband moved to Osaka. Now in 1694, fourteen days before Basho’s death:
Madame Sonome told me that for long she has wished to invite me over, so for the evening of November 14th we made preparations to gather at her home.
Basho as guest of honor begins:
White chrysanthemum no speck of dust rises to meet the eye
It is late autumn so chrysanthemums bloom in Sonome’s garden. She has arranged a few in a vase in the decorative alcove in the room where poets gather. Chrysanthemums can be many colors, but the white ones are most striking in their pure whiteness, the essence of Purity in the chill November weather.
Basho borrows phrases from Saigyo;
On the mirror’s unclouded any dust that meets the eye must be of this world
Saigyo sees purity without gender, and so without life. Basho is looking for, and so he sees, another sort of purity in living and active women. It is essential to realize that this is a greeting-verse from a guest to his hostess: it communicates a personal message of appreciation for Sonome’s skill and care in maintaining her house so that the environment adds to the success and happiness of today’s gathering, and also his appreciation for Sonome as a woman.
According to Shiko, Basho said about WHITE CRYSANTHEMUM
“This is a verse about the beauty
of Sonome’s elegance. Because I knew that today’s one meeting would be the remnant of a lifetime, I thought to watch for a vision in this hour.
Basho usually writes of ‘seeing’ what is hidden -- as he did with Sonome behind the doorway curtain. Here he speaks of concentrating on the woman actually before his eyes -- for this will be his final chance to see her.
According to Shiko who was there at the time, Basho said the verse is about the “beauty of Sonome’s elegance.” Japanese scholars obviously either do not know, or do not approve of Shiko’s account, since they ignore it. Ueda translates five scholars’ comments on this verse: Ueda, three scholar’s comments (Ueda 1992, p. 408)
Here are three of them:
“I would prefer to read this strictly as a poem on white chrysanthemums.” “The beauty of the flower has no reference to anything else.” “Basho was just writing a poem on flowers; he had no thought of Sonome at all; later on, it came to imply the poet’s respect for the hostess with no deliberate intention on his part.”
What?! Basho was at her home, and the haiku was a greeting verse to his hostess. Of course it expresses respect. Here are three fine examples of androcentric thinking. To these scholars (if Ueda’s translations are accurate) any notion that Basho cares about women is an anathema.
Sonome followed Basho with:
White chrysanthemum no speck of dust rises to meet the eye
Morning moon makes water with crimson leaves flow
Shiro-giku no / me ni tatete miru /chiri mo nashi Momiji ni mizu o / nagasu asa-zuki
Sonome counters the Purity of Basho’s stanza with a process Japanese traditionally consider impure and defiling, yet Sonome says is pure: menstruation -- the water (blood) with fallen crimson leaves (discarded lining of the uterus) are made to flow by the Moon.
Basho focuses all on one element, the flower’s whiteness. Sonome’s metaphor for menstruation is complex, even crowded, with three distinct nature images – moon, water, and leaves -- yet without ugliness or disgust: “no speck of dust rises to meet the eye.” In WHITE CHYSANTHEM Basho sees in Sonome the purity, impeccability, divinity for which he has always searched. Through MORNING MOON MAKES WATER, we can, if we choose to, see that same ideal in woman’s body functions. Sonome rejects her patriarchal culture’s image of menstruation as defilement; she says “No! It is pure as a white chrysanthemum – pure but complicated.”
The renku composed by nine poets at Sonome’s house began with Basho’s WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUM, and Sonome followed with MORNING MOON MAKES WATER. Numbers 3 through 9 were by other poets. Following is #10 by Basho, and Sonome’s #11:
Their new house being built, in a shack they have a fire
Resolving to stay here the wife settles down
Basho portrays the uncertain, transient feeling of people who have torn down their old house, and are building a new one, so right now are homeless. They have a place to sleep at night, but spend their days at the construction site. They have made a firepit in a shack on the property, and there cook lunch.
Sonome says camping in a shack is fine for guys, but as a woman she would go crazy without a proper stove and sink and all the other convenieces of a 17th century kitchen. The woman in her stanza did get hysterical, and was ready to return to her native home, an action which could lead to divorce -- but then she thought about it some more, and resolved the matter in her mind: she stays with her husband and, by looking forward to the new home when it is built, endures camping out for a while longer.
Notice the link from the fire in Basho’s stanza to the hysteria in Sonome’s. Basho sketched a family in these circumstances; Sonome narrowed the focus to the wife. In two short lines, she manages to convey both the burning desire in the woman’s heart to get away from the mess and dirt and inconvenience, and also the cooling down as she realizes she had better stay and endure.
I plead for your help in finding a person or group to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material, to edit and improve the presentation, to receive all royalties from sales, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide and preserve for future generations.
The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
