Basho's thoughts on...

• Woman Central
• Introduction to this site
• The Human Story:
• Praise for Women
• Love and Sex in Basho
• Children and Teens
• Humanity and Friendship
• On Translating Basho
• Basho Himself
• Poetry and Music
• The Physical Body
• Food, Drink, and Fire
• Animals in Basho
• Space and Time
• Letters Year by Year
• Bilingual Basho 日本語も
• 芭蕉について日本語の論文
• Basho Tsukeku 芭蕉付句
• BAMHAY (Basho Amazes Me! How About You?)
• New Articles


Matsuo Basho 1644~1694

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.



Basho Spoken Word


Only this, apply your heart
to what children do


"The attachment to Oldness
is the very worst disease
a poet can have."


“The skillful have a disease;
let a three-foot child
get the poem"


"Be sick and tired
of yesterday’s self."


"This is the path of a fresh
lively taste with aliveness
in both heart and words."
.

"In poetry is a realm
which cannot be taught.
You must pass through it
yourself. Some poets have made
no effort to pass through, merely
counting things and trying
to remember them.
There was no passing
through the things."


"In verses of other poets,
there is too much making
and the heart’s
immediacy is lost.
What is made from
the heart is good;
the product of words
shall not be preferred."


"We can live without poetry,
yet without harmonizing
with the world’s feeling
and passing not through
human feeling, a person
cannot be fulfilled. Also,
without good friends,
this would be difficult."


"Poetry benefits
from the realization
of ordinary words."


"Many of my followers
write haiku equal to mine,
however in renku is the
bone marrow of this old man."


"Your following stanza
should suit the previous one as an expression
of the same heart's connection."


"Link verses the way
children play."


"Make renku
ride the Energy.
Get the timing wrong,
you ruin the rhythm."


"The physical form
first of all must be graceful
then a musical quality
makes a superior verse."

"As the years passed
by to half a century.
asleep I hovered
among morning clouds
and evening dusk,
awake I was astonished
at the voices of mountain
streams and wild birds."


“These flies sure enjoy
having an unexpected
sick person.”



Haiku of Humanity


Drunk on sake
woman wearing haori
puts in a sword


Night in spring
one hidden in mystery
temple corner


Wrapping rice cake
with one hands she tucks
hair behind ear


On Life's journey
plowing a small field
going and returning


Child of poverty
hulling rice, pauses to
look at the moon


Tone so clear
the Big Dipper resounds
her mallet


Huddling
under the futon, cold
horrible night


Jar cracks
with the ice at night
awakening



Basho Renku
Masterpieces

With her needle
in autumn she manages
to make ends meet
Daughter playing koto
reaches age seven


After the years
of grieving. . . finally
past eighteen
Day and night dreams of
Father in that battle


Now to this brothel
my body has been sold
Can I trust you
with a letter I wrote,
mirror polisher?


Only my face
by rice-seedling mud
is not soiled
Breastfeeding on my lap
what dreams do you see?



Single renku stanzas


Giving birth to
love in the world, she
adorns herself



Autumn wind
saying not a word
child in tears


Among women
one allowed to lead
them in chorus


Easing in
her slender forearm
for his pillow


Two death poems:


On a journey taken ill
dreams on withered fields
wander about

Clear cascade -
into the ripples fall
green pine needles




basho4humanity
@gmail.com




Plea for Affiliation

 

Plea For Affiliation

 

I pray for your help

in finding someone
individual, university,

or foundation - 
to take over my

3000 pages of material,   
to cooperate with me 

to edit the material,
to receive all royalties 

from sales, to spread

Basho’s wisdom worldwide,
and preserve for

future generations.


basho4humanity

@gmail.com

 



Home  >  Topics  >  Introduction to this site  >  A-02


Categories and Articles - Menu

A clickable list of 300 articles, all containing Basho works

Legend:
Words of Basho in bold
Words of other poets not bold

Each of these 300  articles containing poems and prose and letters and spoken word about humanity; many also contain Japanese originals. Click on any one to go immediately to the article.  

 

 Introducing Basho4Humanity

A –1       Top page – Opening

A - 2      Categories and Articles -- Menu

A-3         Three Basho Quotations -  To Enter His Heart

A-4         Preface

A-5         Introduction to Take Back the Sun

A-6         Introduction to What Children Do

A-7         Introduction to Dear Uncle Basho

A-8         Introduction to Letters from Basho

A-9         Introduction to Sun Bumps Her Forehead

A-10       Samples

A- 11      Three Myths Confining Basho

The Human Story

A-12        Basho’s Reverence for Life

A-13        Bonding the Generations

A-14       Humanity on the Narrow Path

A-15        To Be a Man

A-16       Anthropology in Basho

A-17        Deams of War / Light of  Peace

A-18       Martial Arts

A-19        Poems of death

A-20        Hiding from Sight 

Praise for Women

B-1        Basho’s Appreciation for Women

B-2        Woman with Goddess

B-3        Mothers

B-4      Brides, Wives, Widows

B-5        Pregnancy to Birth

B-6        Breast-feeding with Basho

B-7         Women at Work

B- 8        The Sensual Female Basho

B-9         Rice Maidens

B-10      In the Mirror

B-11       She Walks in Beauty

B-12   Oppression of Women

B-13       Empowering Women

B-14       Icons of the Feminine: Three Basho Haiku

B-15 Icons of the Feminine: Six Basho Renku

B-16       Icons of the Feminine: Eight Basho Tanka

B-17       Supernatural Women

B-18       Jutei, the mystery women in Basho’s life

B-19       Murasaki to Basho

B-20       Shonagon to Basho

B-21       Diving into Humanity

B-22       Mother-Daughter Bonding

B-23       Her Life-breath 

B-24       Solidarity of Women

B-25      Resources for Empowering Women and Girls

B-26      Adoration: The Well Goddess 

B-27      Feminism from Murasaki to Basho

B-28    For the Women of India  

Love and Sex

C-1         Love and Sex in Basho Renku -  17 poems

C-2         Lovers in Love -- 33 poems

C-3         The Beast with Two Backs

C-4 Sex for Men

C-5         My Body has been Sold

C-6         Play-Women from Niigata

Children and Teens

C-7         The Poet of Children – 105 Poems

C- 8        Being a Baby – Commentaries for #s 1 - 20

C-9         Age 3 to 7 – commentaries to #s 21 – 41

C –10      Age 7 to 12 – to #s 42 - 70

C-11        Teenagers -- Commentaries to #s 71 - 106

C-12        Prose and Letters about Children

C-13        Journey with Grandnephew

C-14        Blessing unto Kasane

C-15        Learning to Read with Basho

C–16       Abandoned Child

C-17        Child Welfare

C-18        Kids in Japanese Literature before Basho

C –19       Kids in Western Literature until Shakespeare

C-20        Icons of the Child  -- 7 renku masterpieces of child portrature

C-21        Teenage Girls -  33 poems

C-22        Rub it Out -  Response to Bullying

C-23        Child neglect -- one poem 

C-24        Girls Only

Humanity and Friendship

D-1         Hope Emerging

D-2         Joy and Fun

D-3         Dreams in Basho

D-4         Compassion

D-5         Humanity Blossoms

D-6         Laughing Along

D-7         Six Close Friends

D-8          Letters to Ensui, Basho’s BFF

D-9          Sampu, patron and close friend

D-10        Sora, frequent traveling companion

D-11        Letters to Uko and her haiku,

D-12        Letters to Chigetsu and her haiku,

D-13        Sonome, her haiku and renku with Basho

D-14        Kyorai, beloved and trusted friend.

D-15        The Life and Death of Chine

D-16        Hospitality

On Translation

D-17        Syllables, Words, and Beats

D-18        Difficulties and Solutions in Translating Basho

D-19        (Mis)translating Basho’s Humanity

D-20        Gentleness  in one Basho Letter to Uko

 

 

Basho Himself

E-1      Challenging the Basho Image

E-2      20-year-old Basho

E-3      Realization of Lightness

E-4      Chuang Tzu to Basho

E-5      Friends in Zen

E-6      Who was Basho? 

E-7      Basho Prose

E-8      Basho Spoken Word

E-9       Five Final Haiku

E-10     Dying with a Smile

Poetry and Music

E-11      Basho on How to Write Haiku

E-12      My First Renku Journeys

E-13      The Flow of Renku

E-14      Boncho, Basho, Kyorai

E-15      Tanka Equivilants

E-16       Basho’s Zen Poetry

E-17      Poetry in Basho Letters

E-18      Ride the Energy

E-19      Music and Song

E-20      Reply to Shiki 

E-21      A Green Dragon's ears


The Physical Body

F-1 -   Faces

F-2 -   Hands

F-3 -   Long Black Hair

F-4 -   Basho Sings the Body Electric

F-5 -   Sickness and Health

F-6 -   Breath

F-7 -    Diagram of a snore

Fire, Food, Drink, 

F-8       Fire in Basho

F-9       Cooking and Eating Rice

F-10     Besides Rice

F-11     Menu for Moon-Viewing

F-12     High on Sake

F-13     Ganja Basho

Animals

F-14 -   Deer Alive

F-15 -   Cats and Dogs

F-16 -   Horses on the Go

F-17 -   Other Mammals

F-18 -   Birds

F-19 -   Underwater Life

F-20 -    Ode to a Crow

 

Space and Time

G-1 -    Daybreak to Sunrise

G-2 -    New Years with Basho

G-3 -    Mount Fuji 

G-4 -    Water with Movement

G-5 -    On a Journey

G-6 -    Kyoto in Basho

G-7 -    Iga Ninja – Three Prologues

G-8 -    Basho in Saga

G-9 -    Zeze: Resting Place for his Spirit

G-10 -   Transcending Space and Time

 

Letters Year by Year

G-11 -    Letters of 1681 – 87

G-12 -    1688 – 89

G-13 -    1690

G-14 -    Letters of 1691

G-15 -    1692

G-16 -     Spring of 1693,

G-17 -      Summer 1693 to Spring 1694

G-18 -      Two Letters to Sora: the Final Journey

G-19 -      Rest of summer, 1694

G-20 -      Final Letters – Autumn and early winter

 

Bilingual Basho – Japanese/English

H–1     Wrapping Rice Cake (Haiku)

H–2     Night in Spring (Haiku)

H–3     The Eternal Mother (Renku)

H 4      Young and Helpless (Renku)

H-5      Lighting Lantern (Renku)

H–6     Weaving folded (Renku)

H-7      Coins Held in Her Hand (Renku)

H-8      Response to Bullying (Renku)

H–9      Sister and Nancy  (Renku)

H–10     Shizuka and Emilia (Renku)

H–11     Spring Passes By - A Tanka of Hope

H–12    Lingering on. . .” (Tanka)

H–13     Only my face (Tanka)

H -14     Day and Night Dreams (Renku)

H–15     To Quiet Down (Renku)

H–16     While She Puffs the Ash (Renku)

H -17     Giving birth to (Renku)

H-18      Daughter Playing Koto (Renku)

H-19      Straw Mats their Shields (Renku)

H-20      Though my Thoughts (Renku)

 

芭蕉について日本語の論文

J-01      芭蕉における女性像

J-02      新潟から遊女

J-03      重ねを賀す

J-04      芭蕉から 羽紅婦人宛の 手紙二通

J-05  女性の5つのライフステージ

 

370 Basho Renku ー 日本語も    

K-01     Basho Tsukeku Section 1 

K-02     Basho Tsukeku Section  2 

K-03     Basho Tsukeku Section 3 

K-04     Basho Tsukeku Section 4 

K-05     Basho Tsukeku Section  5 

K-06     Basho Tsukeku Section  6 

K-07     Basho Tsukeku Section  7 

K-08      Basho Tsukeku Section 8 

K-09     Basho Tsukeku Section  9 

K-10      Basho Tsukeku Section  10 

K-11      Verses Only: Tsukeku 1

K-12      Verses Only: Tsukeku 

K-13      Verses Only: Tsukeku 3

K-14      Verses Only: Tsukeku 4

K-15      Verses Only: Tsukeku 

K-16      Verses Only: Tsukeku 

K-17      Verses Only: Tsukeku 

K-18      Verses Only: Tsukeku 

K-19      Verses Only: Tsukeku 

K-20      Verses Only: Tsukeku 10

 

       Women in Basho 

 

L-1        Verses Only:  First Half 

L-2        Verses Only: Second Half 

L-3        Power of Women 

L-4        Women with Goddess

L-5        Pregnancy to Birth

L-6        Breastfeeding with Basho

L-7        Mothers, by Basho

L-8        A Year of Women

L-9        Long Black Hair 

L-10      Her Face

L-11       Attraction

L-12       Music and Song 

L- 13      Miss Cellany

L-14       A Woman's Love

L-15       Marriage for Women

L-16       She Has a Name

L-17        Women in Buddhism

L-18        Oppression of Women

L-19        Death and Near Dying

L-20        Brothel Slavery

L-21       Basho prose, letters, and  spoken word


    BAMHAY --  Basho Amazes Me!  How About You? 

M-1        After Having Measles    

M-2        Sake and Breasts

M-3        Breastfeeding on my Lap

M-4        One Soft Chubby Tush 

M-5        Basho on Sexual Passion 

M-6        Engulfed by Passion 

M-7        Two Basho Renku on Make-up and Dress

M-8        Basho's Mona Lisa

M-9        Mother-Daughter IV

M-10      She Adorns Herself 

M-11      Follow The Drinking Gourd       

M-12      To a Newborn Baby Girl

M-13      Mother and Daughter   I

M-14      Mother and Daughter   II

M-15      The Eternal Mother

M-16      Can I Trust You?  

M-17      Death of Father 

M-18     Empowereed by Song 

M-19      Tigress at Daybreak 

M-20      Love Poem by Basho

M-21      Haiku and a Child's Face 

M-22      Fear and Rape 

M-23      Mother and Daughter III

M-24      Boy's Mischief

M-25      Young and Helpless

M-26      Woman in the Center

M-27      Energy From Basho

M-28      The Night Before a Battle

M-29      Cat Sex

M-30      Love in one Basho Renku

M-31      Are you stoned?

M-32      Beating down women and girls

M-33      Fickle one!

M-34      Basho's most erotic haiku

M-35      Sword drawn in a flash

M-36      Mole on her Face 

M-37      Basho and Taima

M-38      Mysogyny and Menstruation

M-39      Penis Recalls Umbilicus

M-40      Tuberculosis

 

         New Articles

N-01      Friendship

N-02      Dragonflies

N-03      Chant of Lotus Sutra

N-04      Purity of a  Woman

N-05      Attendant to a Child

N-06      To My Neighbor                 

N-07      Basho's Two Death Haiku

N-08      Goddess of Mercy

N-09      Delicacy and Roughness

N-10      Women Having Fun 

N-11      Dance with Basho

N-12      In a Hot Spring 

N-14      Women in Basho:  43 Haiku

N-15      Women in Basho: Prose and Letters

N-16      Nightsoil and Reincarnation

 

 basho4humanity@gmail.com






<< Top page – Opening (A-01) (A-03) Three Basho Quotations >>


The Three Thirds of Basho

 

 

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.

 

basho4humanity@gmail.com
Basho's thoughts on...

• Woman Central
• Introduction to this site
• The Human Story:
• Praise for Women
• Love and Sex in Basho
• Children and Teens
• Humanity and Friendship
• On Translating Basho
• Basho Himself
• Poetry and Music
• The Physical Body
• Food, Drink, and Fire
• Animals in Basho
• Space and Time
• Letters Year by Year
• Bilingual Basho 日本語も
• 芭蕉について日本語の論文
• Basho Tsukeku 芭蕉付句
• BAMHAY (Basho Amazes Me! How About You?)
• New Articles


Matsuo Basho 1644~1694

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.



Basho Spoken Word


Only this, apply your heart
to what children do


"The attachment to Oldness
is the very worst disease
a poet can have."


“The skillful have a disease;
let a three-foot child
get the poem"


"Be sick and tired
of yesterday’s self."


"This is the path of a fresh
lively taste with aliveness
in both heart and words."
.

"In poetry is a realm
which cannot be taught.
You must pass through it
yourself. Some poets have made
no effort to pass through, merely
counting things and trying
to remember them.
There was no passing
through the things."


"In verses of other poets,
there is too much making
and the heart’s
immediacy is lost.
What is made from
the heart is good;
the product of words
shall not be preferred."


"We can live without poetry,
yet without harmonizing
with the world’s feeling
and passing not through
human feeling, a person
cannot be fulfilled. Also,
without good friends,
this would be difficult."


"Poetry benefits
from the realization
of ordinary words."


"Many of my followers
write haiku equal to mine,
however in renku is the
bone marrow of this old man."


"Your following stanza
should suit the previous one as an expression
of the same heart's connection."


"Link verses the way
children play."


"Make renku
ride the Energy.
Get the timing wrong,
you ruin the rhythm."


"The physical form
first of all must be graceful
then a musical quality
makes a superior verse."

"As the years passed
by to half a century.
asleep I hovered
among morning clouds
and evening dusk,
awake I was astonished
at the voices of mountain
streams and wild birds."


“These flies sure enjoy
having an unexpected
sick person.”



Haiku of Humanity


Drunk on sake
woman wearing haori
puts in a sword


Night in spring
one hidden in mystery
temple corner


Wrapping rice cake
with one hands she tucks
hair behind ear


On Life's journey
plowing a small field
going and returning


Child of poverty
hulling rice, pauses to
look at the moon


Tone so clear
the Big Dipper resounds
her mallet


Huddling
under the futon, cold
horrible night


Jar cracks
with the ice at night
awakening



Basho Renku
Masterpieces

With her needle
in autumn she manages
to make ends meet
Daughter playing koto
reaches age seven


After the years
of grieving. . . finally
past eighteen
Day and night dreams of
Father in that battle


Now to this brothel
my body has been sold
Can I trust you
with a letter I wrote,
mirror polisher?


Only my face
by rice-seedling mud
is not soiled
Breastfeeding on my lap
what dreams do you see?



Single renku stanzas


Giving birth to
love in the world, she
adorns herself



Autumn wind
saying not a word
child in tears


Among women
one allowed to lead
them in chorus


Easing in
her slender forearm
for his pillow


Two death poems:


On a journey taken ill
dreams on withered fields
wander about

Clear cascade -
into the ripples fall
green pine needles




basho4humanity
@gmail.com




Plea for Affiliation

 

Plea For Affiliation

 

I pray for your help

in finding someone
individual, university,

or foundation - 
to take over my

3000 pages of material,   
to cooperate with me 

to edit the material,
to receive all royalties 

from sales, to spread

Basho’s wisdom worldwide,
and preserve for

future generations.


basho4humanity

@gmail.com