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.
A collection of 200 Basho renku focuing on humanity: with original Japanese and Romanization, and commentaries right below the original so you easily go to them for information.
Sun bumps Her forehead on peak of Mount Fuji
Hi ni gaku o utsu / fuji no mine age 日に 額 を うつ / 富士の 峰 上げ
Introduction
Far beyond the haiku Basho wrote by himself are the stanzas he contributed to renku, or linked verse composed by a team of poets. His renku are far more numerous, yet while his haiku have become world-famous, the renku are known only to a few specialists. While his well-known haiku are mostly nature scenes or songs of loneliness so haiku scholars claim Basho was “impersonal, detached, and objective,” his renku overflow with human life, activity, and heart. Basho's several hundred renku stanzas on humanity are a profound reservoir of resources for understanding humanity.
The 200 stanzas by Basho in this collection are mostly in stanza-pairs (though I have included a few trios), Basho either passing or receiving, two separate minds connecting to reach profound truth about human experience. Basho said:
Many of my followers write haiku equal to mine, In renku is the bone marrow of this old man.
発句は門人の中、予におとらぬ句する人多し。俳諧においては老翁が骨髄. Haiku wa monjin no naka, ni otoranu ku suru hito ōshi.
Renku ni oite wa rōō ga kotsuzui。
The “bone marrow of this old man” – the vital inner core of his consciousness – is his feeling for the “heart’s connection” in renku. Basho told his followers
It would be good for you to see from practice that your following stanza suits the previous one as an expression of the same heart’s connection.
ある付句に前句を添えて、同じ付心が
表現できるような訓練などをしてみるのもよい
Aru tsukeku ni maeku o soete, onaji tsuke-kokoro ga hyōgen dekiru yō na kunren nado o shite miru no yoi.
When Basho receives a stanza from another poet, he searches for the “heart’s connection” and harmonizes with it to fulfill his own vision. When we in the 21st century read the stanzas, if the “heart’s connections” appeal to us, then we appreciate the verse, and it becomes a pathway in our own consciousness. On the next page is a renku stanza pair, Kyokusui passing and Basho receiving, that may form a “heart’s connection” with women and teenage girls today.
From slender threads love becomes intense
Though my thoughts are of love, “eat something!” she commands me
物 おもふ /身 に もの 喰え と/ せつかれて Mono omou / mi ni mono kue to / setsukarete
Kyokusui notes, in a rather generalized and abstract way, that love starts out simple but somehow becomes “intense.” Basho makes this the experience of a teenage girl, and also brings her mother into the scene. History books never tell us of the relationships teenage girls had with mother, but Basho does.
“Although the turmoil of young love takes away all my appetite, mother insists I eat, to build up my slender body. Why can’t she understand that I cannot eat while this turmoil rages within me? Mother, stop bugging me!” So Basho portrays the generation gap 300 years ago or today: daughter thinking of love but mother of nourishment, so no meeting of minds.
This is Basho, the student of humanity: he observes people – including women and children -- and records his observations in this form of cooperative poetry. In renku, Basho is both sociologist and anthropologist. A professor of Theatre at Michigan State University, Michele Root Bernstein, notes
“The astonishing range of social subject matter and compassionate intuition
that Basho reveals in his links.”
Basho’s “compassionate intuition” for the teenage girl in the turmoil of adolescent love, as well as for her mother striving to guide her daughter through adolescence, is unique in world literature; other authors occasionally portray the teenager in love (i.e. Juliet) but Basho’s verses are the earliest and most numerous, diverse, and insightful portraits of female teenage girls in love, as well in not-so-romantic circumstances.
Basho offers a positive, life-affirming vision of ordinary everyday life. More than any author of olden times,
Basho honors the active living physical body,
He recognizes and praises ordinary women
He affirms the joy and tears of children.
He highlights the succession of generations
He promotes solidarity among people
Here is another pair by Kyokusui and Basho:
Mixed bathing in a Suwa hot spring twilight dim,
Among them a tall mountain ascetic
Irigomi ni / Suwa no ideyu no / yuu magure 入り込みに / 諏訪の 湧湯 の /夕 ま暮れ
Naka ni mo sei no / takaki yamabushi 中 に も せいの / 高き 山伏
The citation 7: 69 indicates this stanza appears on page 69 of volume 7 of the Complete Basho Renku Anthology.
Kyokusui begins with a fascinating scene of a hot spring in the mountains of northern Japan where men and women bathe together naked -- however he hides them in the twilight steamy air. Then, within Kyokusui’s image, Basho opens a new vision. In the hot pool sits a “tall mountain ascetic” These yamabushi followed the path of shugendō, a discipline of physical endurance in severe conditions – such as sitting or standing in a cold waterfall – as the path to enlightenment. A mountain ascetic would come to a hot spring for
self-purification in the scalding heat.
Basho seems to have realized that “tall mountain ascetic” illustrates his mastery of poetic technique: he said,
The following stanza fits in with the previous one, and along with that, it stands out to the eyes.
付け句は「前句にはまりてつけたるなり。 その中の事を目に立てて、いはたる句なり。
Tsukeku wa “maeku ni hamarite tsuketaru nari. Sono naka no koto o me ni tatete, iwataru ku nari
Basho explains that the mountain ascetic “fits in with” the hot pool and evening dimness, while also he “stands out to the eyes.” Many mountain ascetics lived in the remote and arduous mountains around Suwa, and for one of these men to bathe in a Suwa hot spring would not be unusual. So Basho’s stanza fits in with Kyokusui’s. Other folks relax and slouch in the steaming hot water, but he sits up straight and tall so his muscular chest and shoulders stand out from the hot spring environment and evening darkness.
Every philosopher and art critic could elaborate on this synthesis of “fitting in” with “standing out” – yet none of them could provide so fine an example of this synthesis as Basho does with his mountain ascetic in the evening twilight at a remote hot spring.
Here Sora begins and Basho follows:
The punitive force already has set forth in solemn dignity
For one night’s vow he empties his purse
Sude ni tatsu / utte no tsukai / ikameshiku
ichiya no chigiri / zeni ga kazukeru
すでに立つ / 討手の使い / いかめしき
一夜 の 契り/ 銭 が かづける
The emperor has ordered troops to subjugate the rebels; the samurai gather, and when morning comes, leave camp with strict, solemn military precision. Meanwhile, the commander of the rebels (Han Solo) has spent the night in a brothel, and when morning comes makes a hasty departure so he can prepare his army. Before he leaves, since he is not likely to ever need cash again, he gives all he has to his partner in “one night’s vow.” Here we have an indentured sex slave who got lucky. Sold to a brothel for a money loan when she was ten or 12, unable to pay off the loan, these girls typically died, often from syphilis, by age 22. Though the woman is not mentioned in any word, if we explore the link between the two stanzas, we discover her.
Taking off from Sora’s masculine military stanza, Basho creates a blessing for the female. Military commanders carry considerable funds. Now she can purchase her freedom, return to her home village, a hero because she saved her family from ruin, marry that boy she loves, and have children. After her one night together with the commander, we feel her joy when she realizes what he has given her, and we feel her grief as she understands why he is giving away all his cash. Only Basho can so simply take us so deep into the human heart.
The diversity of humanity in Basho verse is vast. In these few pages, Basho has taken us inside five people: a teenage girl with mother, a magnificent naked man in a hot spring, and a rebel commander and courtesan. The 200 stanzas in the collection contain hundreds more women, children, and men for you to explore and create. In SUN BUMPS HER FOREHEAD, except for in this Introduction, there is no commentary, but only the words of Basho and fellow poets, in English, and Japanese, and Romanization. Without commentary, for many verses, few readers will get the meaning the poets had in mind. That’s okay. Even if you do not, you will still get some message about a person or people. Explore that message. Those who wish to discover the depths of the original can find commentary for each stanza in Basho4Humanity .
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.
