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.
This is the story of the first three renku stanzas – one single stanza and a stanza pair, all by Basho -- which six years go made the connections in my mind to draw me into the renku universe. I had seen renku in Makoto Ueda’s biography Matsuo Basho and Haruo Shirane’s Traces of Dreams, but none of them make those connections. One day, searching for Basho verses on women and children, I looked in Hiroaki Sato’s Basho’s Narrow Road: A Farewell Gift to Sora, and there among the 36 stanzas found these three stanzas which drew me into them. So began the six year paths I have following with these stanzas and the adjacent stanzas by other poets which compliment Basho’s stanzas.
Autumn wind saying not a word child in tears
Because the stanza gives no hint of circumstances, we can imagine the child in any circumstances shedding silent tears. Basho’s stanza is brilliant because it can apply to any child, anywhere in the world. I enjoy considering the stanza all by itself, linking it with visions of children I know, or read about, or see in videos – but I also like to consider it along with the previous and following stanzas which portray very specific situations in which this child crying says nothing.
First he wipes off dew bamboo for hunting bow
Autumn wind saying not a word child in tears
A man has cut a fine stalk of bamboo to make a hunting bow, and wipes off the morning dew. The child weeps because father is going to kill an innocent animal -- but can speak no word of this to this imposing patriarch who would not respond kindly to such criticism from a small child.
Autumn wind saying not a word child in tears
White shroud passing on
procession of mourners
In Japan and other Asian cultures, white is associated with death, and the deceased is wrapped in a white shroud and placed in a coffin in a sitting position. The coffin was carried on a litter to the burial place, accompanied by a procession of mourning relatives and priests intoning sutras. The poet portrays the movement of the coffin containing the white-shrouded corpse through the long rows of mourners. The child in silent tears watches the coffin and corpse continue away from him, as the father’s spirit also departs from the child’s heart.
Rain clearing to cloudy the biwa have ripened
As graceful as the slender figure of a goddess
She wrings out red dye into the white rapids
Hokushi portrays the weather at the end of the summer rainy season when rain stops, the heavy clouds break up and separate moving rapidly, leaving patches of clear sky, then clouds reform to bring more rain. At this time loquats, similar to plums, form in clusters on their trees; oval shaped, an inch or two long with yellow or orange skin and succulent tangy insides. ‘Clouds and rain’ in Chinese and traditional Japanese poetry alludes to sexual intimacy.
Basho compliments and fulfills Hokushi’s image of moving clouds and ripening fruit with the figure of a goddess lying down to spread horizontally across the sky. Hiroaki Sato tells us a sennyo is “a woman who has acquired magical powers, suggesting the legendary world of ancient China. Renku scholar Miyawaki says “The phrase “loquats have ripened,” as intimate relations mature, evokes the image of making love with the goddess.” Sato says “(Basho) painted with words a picture of a Chinese goddess that Utamaro – ukiyoe artist famous for sexual imagery -- might have drawn with a brush.”
Basho then continues with another stanza which turns the immortal goddess of the preceding link into a mortal female. The goddess strands up beside the river, wringing out fabric soaked in the red dye akane, madder, into the swift current which carries away all traces of red. Basho imagery is Chinese and Japanese, yet his goddess at work can be of any race in any time. His sensual worship of the female transcends all boundaries
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.
