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  >  Poetry and Music  >  E-19


Music and Song

4 Basho haiku and 13 renku about musical experience

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

15 Basho poems on music and song reveal a consciousness of profound effects on the brain. Let the music in his verses take you to another place. Daniel Levitin in This is your Brain on Music notes that his tears at weddings come not from the “sight of the hope and love of the bride and groom,” but rather from the wedding music.  Basho would have dug Levitin’s insight. 

 

Words, Syllables, and Beats

Background: Japanese for a thousand years before Basho wrote poetry in alternating stanzas of 17 and 14 “syllables,” the former in three segments of 5 – 7 – 5, the latter in two segments of 7 – 7. I put “syllables” in quotes because in Japanese these are merely single sounds; usually two of them form what English calls

a “syllable” – as in the Japanese word ramen which is four sounds: ra-a me-n in two syllables (ra-men).

The Japanese sound-unit would better be called a “half-syllable.” 

 

In the 20th century it was widely assumed that a haiku translation should have 17 syllables because the Japanese has 17 sound-units. 21st century translators have realized that 17 syllables are longer in sound duration than 17 sound-units, so abandoned the 5-7-5 syllable pattern, but also abandoned all fixed form, so every line of every translation can have whatever syllable count is convenient. I say let go of the 5 – 7 - 5 pattern, but maintain a fixed form.

 

My dictionary defines “verse” as “a sequence of words arranged metrically, in accordance with some rule or design.” Through the years I have found that if I reproduce Basho’s Japanese directly into English, using the same nouns and verbs and adjectives he uses, adding nothing and removing nothing, however smoothing out the grammar, the segments of five Japanese sounds usually come out easily and naturally to three syllables in English, while the Japanese sevens become four or five English syllables. Most of my translations have a syllable pattern of 3 – 5 – 3, sometimes with a few more or less unaccented syllables. While the syllable count varies slightly, what remains consistent throughout my translations is the rhythm of beats.   

I propose that these poems are musical compositions with measures alternating between threebeats and four beats, however the three-beat measures have a silent one-beat pause, so the full beat is 4 - 4 - 4.

 

For a haiku or three-line renku stanza: 

Three beats and pause / four beats without a pause / three beats and pause

 

Among women (    ) 
one allowed to lead
them in chorus (    )

 

This, both in Japanese and in English, is the “rule or design” which makes the words poetry.

Japanese score a haiku with all notes on the same pitch, so the haiku is a sort of chant or mantra.

The four beats per measure strike with perfect regularity to calm and steady the mind.

 

Basho said:

 

The physical form must be graceful,
then the musical quality makes a superior verse

 

To be graceful, there must be a consistant rhythm, and four beats to a measure is most graceful.   

The syllables expand or contract to fit into four beats to every measure.  Although the pauses are silent, they are definitely present. (Laura-Mae’s grade school piano teacher slapped her hand when she ignored them.) Shoko from her years of experience on the piano says that the pauses “regulate the rhythm”

(choshi o totonoeru 調子を整える).

 

For a two-line renku stanza:

Four beats without a pause / and another four beats.

 

Basho also used musical terminology in speaking about renku, or linked verse, where each poet fits his stanza to the one before:

 

“Make renku ride the energy.

If you chime in incorrectly, you ruin the rhythm.”
 

So here is the above stanza by Basho together with the stanza which spawned it: 

Her semblance of power
pebbles thrown in vain

Among women
one allowed to lead
them in chorus

 

His boat has left harbour. She tries to reach the boat with pebbles – i.e. her love -- but her slender arm cannot throw them any distance against the wind. From the weakness of the lone woman, Basho switches to a chorus of women allowing one woman to lead them, so their sound goes far.  May Basho's stanza, with or without the previous one, become an anthem for choral singers. 


To see and hear how syllables expand or contract to form a consistent four beat rhythm, how pauses regulate the rhythm, how the lyrics ride the energy of the music,  and how they chime in correctly, consider   the iconic chorus of We are the World.  

 

( ) (We) (are) (the)
(wor)(ld) (     )
( ) (We) (are) (the)
(chil) (dr) (re) (en)

 

According to the score, the first measure begins with a pause then three words each taking a beat, then the “world” and a two-beat pause fills the second measure. “Children” takes a full four beats, yet the “dren” part is three times longer than the “chil.” If you listen to the original, notice how Bruce Springsteen clearly draws out the “dren” to three beats.

 

( ) (We) (are) (the)
(ones) (who) (make) (a brighter)
(day) (so) (let’s) (start)
(giv) (ing) (       )

 

The six syllables of “ones who make a brighter” compress to four beats, then “giv-ing” stretches out to two beats plus a long pause. “Day so let’s start” is clearly four beats. Notice the three words that take a full measure: “world” “children” and “giving” – the focal points in the song.

 

The 20th century novelist and haiku poet Akutagawa Ryunosuke (author of Rashomon) said about a Basho verse:

 

“During that long span of three hundred years Basho alone 
was capable of creating such solemn verbal music.”
 

Koto, Lyre, and Flute 

 

Here is an example of "verbal music" by another poet followed by Basho:

 

 

With her needle

in autumn she manages
to make ends meet

Daughter playing koto
reaches age seven

 

This woman has enough work sewing before winter comes. She may “make ends meet” in autumn, but has to survive the rest of the year. Into this poor struggling home, Basho introduces a daughter and a koto, or 13-string harp, an instrument of refinement played only by women. If the mother owns a koto, she must have been well-off in the past, but fallen on hard times. Notice the link between the form of needlework and the strings and frets on the harp. Both stanzas convey the diligence and constant effort of the female, the action of her hands producing order, rhythm, and beauty.

 

The daughter plays her mother’s koto here and now, and also plays it through the months, years, decades of practice required to master the instrument. Basho praises the young girl in the early stages of her discipline. Author Leonard Shlain says that cultures worldwide consider age seven the beginning of wisdom and moral understanding, and I find his statement helps me realize the profound meaning within Basho's stanza. We imagine the pride the hard-working mother feels hearing her daughter produce such beauty. With utmost subtlety and grace, through the powerful effect music has on the brain, Basho portrays the bond between mother and daughter, the hope for a better future that the growing and learning girl evokes in her mother, hope rising on the lovely notes emerging from her seven-year-old fingers on the harp. 

 

 

 “Music washes away the dust of everyday life”

 

                                                                           Bernard Auerbach 

 

Consider the following haiku a riddle:

 

Blossoms fall—
the bird was surprised
dust on the harp

 

 

Can you see the point? A proverb says “beautiful music can move dust.” Basho says that the tones from the koto rise to the roof and startles a bird sitting on the exposed beams, so the bird dislodges some dust which falls—like cherry petals fluttering down – onto the harp and the woman playing it. Although never mentioned, she is central to the verse: she makes the music and she notices the dust.

 

 

Hand that plays koto

writes letter of regret

Cherries in bloom
again she climbs the hill
to his grave

 

Because she plays the koto we imagine her character: delicate, precise, methodical yet etereal.  Both       her beauty and her suffering go into the notes she plays on the harp, and both go into the letter she writes.  From that blend of music and feeling, Basho further probes the human heart. Each year in cherry blossom season, she comes here to climb the hill of her grief.

 

The Tale of Genji tells of Young Murasaki, the 9 year old girl Genji has kidnapped and is raising in seclusion to make the great love of his life when she matures.

 

She played the koto for him, briefly and very competently.                                    He thought her delightful as she leaned forward to press a string                     
with her left hand. He took out a flute and she had a music lesson.
Very quick, she could repeat a difficult melody after but a single hearing.

 

 A unique moment in world literature, this praise for the sensory-motor intelligence of a young girl not even ten: she plays with dolls but also can listen to a difficult melody one time on one instrument and, without seeing a score for the piece, without even knowing how to read music, reproduce it on a completely different instrument. Little Miss Mozart.

 

In the following stanza-pair,  Sukan suggests Young Murasaki and Basho follows with a musical passage:

 

At an age
to take care of dolls
she is lovely

Harp held in her hands

heavy upon her lap

 

The girl lavishes her affection on dolls – developing her skills and self-confidence for taking care of babies. This is not the large koto but a smaller zither. She hugs it on her lap as she would a doll or a baby. From Sukan’s ideal of loveliness, Basho jumps into body sensation; the words he uses – omotaki, heavy in weight; kakaeru, “holds”; hiza, “lap” – all so physical and intimate -- resembling Young Murasaki “leaning forward to press a string with her left hand.”

 

The next poet took Basho’s stanza about a child who “holds” a harp, and changed to an old woman who “held” the koto when she was a court lady decades ago.

 

Harp held in her hands

heavy upon her lap

Even as dreams
in her snooze, no memories
of being at court

 

She drifts away in a snooze, yet her dreams contain no memories of what she did or said or knew during her years of service to the Empress – all that remains in her addled mind is the body-memory of the harp resting on her lap as she sat on her heels. So the poets play with and transform time.

 

Among the most memorable musical experiences in Japan is the song Sakura, a standard on the koto commonly heard from loud speakers at famous sites for blossom viewing.

 

Cherry Blossoms

Traditional Folk Song

 

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms
In the sky of April, as far as I can see
Are they mist? Are they clouds?
with a fragrance rising
Hey let’s go, hey let’s go, out to see them.

 

In spite of the happy child-like words, the song in a minor key sounds melancholy. At the top of the score, the instructions to the musician are “solemn, stately.” Almost every note in the score is a straight quarter note with just a few half-notes and paired eighth-notes. There are no complicated notes at all. Since the meter is 4/4, the four quarter notes in each measure roll out with complete regularity. With such extreme structural simplicity, Sakura is the first piece a student is given to practice on the koto.

 

About half of the total notes have a distinct rhythm:

two quarter notes on the same pitch followed by a half note one step higher:

 

Sa ku RA, Sa ku RA.
I za YA, I za YA

 

With this distinct pattern of notes, the song makes us remember it, and thereby makes us remember the years of our lives in which we heard and sung the folk song, and furthermore the centuries before we were born in which people heard and sung this song.

 

The juvenile cicada sheds its skin – or “exoskelton” or “shell” -- to emerge as an adult; the utsusemi, or abandoned skin, remains, on the bark of the tree. Utsusemi, in the Tale of Genji, is a woman who resisted Genji’s romantic advances; one night he tried to force himself on her, but she escaped, leaving her outer robe behind in his grasp and giving her the name she is known by.

 

Shell discarded
in Yoshino mountains
strumming koto

Wind through the leaves
plays the bamboo flute

His hermitage
among pines and cedars
outside Kyoto

 

The Yoshino Mountains are far enough from Kyoto that she can play her koto in peace without Genji bothering her. The mountain trees are full of countless adult male cicadas making their “cries” by rapidly vibrating abdominal membranes; the sound goes on and on all day long in the heat of summer, driving some people crazy, while some, such as Basho, compare the notes of a koto. Shinsho maintains the theme of music as an expression of nature sounds, shifting from cicadas in the trees sounding like a koto to a bamboo flute sounding like the wind blows through the trees. Basho then gives this flutist a hermitage among the trees where he can master his instrument by playing along with that wind – still with access to the City.


Giving breast

to baby, something
she must say:

“Leaving thoughts behind,
Papa sent faraway”

Strumming lute
from evening, she cries
past daybreak

 

 

With so few words, the three poets create a world, complete with mother, father, and baby; breastfeeding and speaking to baby; the love between the couple; the sadness of him being transferred to a distant place; the melancholy notes of the lute together with her distraught sobbing, from evening through night into day.

 


Taira Atsumori, recognized from youth for his talent on the flute, was given a family heirloom, his grandfather’s bamboo flute “Green Leaves.” The night before they were destroyed by their enemy, they had a party to enjoy themselves while they could. 18 year old Atsumori played his flute, touching the hearts of all who heard. In the morning the attackers overwhelmed them. The Taira fled to cabin boats they had waiting on the beach. In the chaos and confusion, teenage Atsumori forgot his flute. He went back to get it and returned to the shore where he was cut down by an enemy warrior. Basho 500 years later, is at Suma Temple near where the battle occurred, where the actual flute of Atsumori is kept.

 

In the shade
of green leaves to hear
the unblown flute

 

In summer the multitude of green leaves blocks out the sunlight, so there is a shade, a sort of darkness, under the trees – and also ‘shade’ suggests the presence of a ghost. In this place where Atsumori played his flute five centuries ago, Basho feels the vibrations (the ghost) from that performance still lingering in the earth and stones, remaining in “traces.”


Waking from sleep
his finger movements
play the flute

Good practice together
at older brother’s knee

 

A boy has practiced the bamboo flute hour by hour, embedding the finger patterns into his brain circuitry, but signals sometimes get mixed. When he awakens in the night, still half-asleep, his fingers move spontaneously, as if on the holes of his flute. From the disassociation of the boy alone in the night playing an non-existent flute, one might expect Basho to follow with more loneliness and disassociation – but that is NOT what he does. He expands the flute theme to two brothers, one older and one younger, who have practiced together for years, sitting in proper sitting position, beside each other, so their knees line up. The harmony between two flutes played by boys sharing the same genes, same home, same upbringing, comes from the same deep mind as the unconscious finger movements. Instead of dwelling on the existential loneliness, Basho affirms the solidarity of brotherhood, the succession of skill and knowledge from older to younger; he does this in a completely physical way, through the interweaving tones of two bamboo flutes and the two pair of knees lined up in formal sitting position.


Song   

 

While the young women of the village transplanted rice-seedlings to the paddy mud, they sang songs to the kamisama with ancient melodies

 

 

Refinement’s
origin – in the heartlands
rice-planting songs

 

In these songs Basho hears the origins of “refinement” -- which means “poetry” as well as all of culture that refines us to a higher state. Here is a rice planting song from the heartlands, Iwate-ken in the Deep North.

 

One shoot becomes a thousand,
in autumn we reap the tax
and when we reap the tax,
Master can take a woman.
Planting and planting more
makes my lower back hurt,
how I wish to quit this job,
Gods of the Rice Field.

 

Rice produces more harvest per seed than other grains: The rice tax was rent paid to the daimyo owner of this province: 40 - 60% of the rice taken each year right after harvest. During harvest, the “Master” skims off some wealth to use for his private pleasure. The women works hour after hour in the hot, bug-infested fields so the man can enjoy being with a woman who never works in the hot, bug-infested fields.

 

Kyorai’s little sister Chine on a journey wrote a haiku about the worksongs of women:

 

In a house across the way, young and old women gather to hull rice while singing until late night, with the door open, we hear them.

 

At each lodging
the rice-hulling songs
are different

 

On her first journey, Chine learns of human diversity— that people only one day apart do the same work, to different songs. Her verse is anthropology in its purest form. A standard anthropologist would record each place and the song there, but Chine sums up the custom with one clear conclusion.

 

Before rice entered the country, taro was a stable food of peasants in Japan (as well as throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands; in Hawaii, the tuber kalo, the ingredient for poi). The song, “Washing Taro,” found in a 1578 songbook, is far older than Basho.

 

A taro and a taro!
Which one is preferred? (repeat)
Rain beats on the clumps of ground.
Tiny taro are preferred. (repeat)
The nice round ones. (repeat)
Round like the 15th night moon. (repeat)
My husband has gone to the Capital. (repeat)
He shall do no wrong. (repeat)

 

Women washing taro in the river begin with a simple counting rhythm, similar to “one-potato, two-potato…” but also meaning “Does he have a mistress in the Capital and which one of us wll he prefer?” Taro are traditionally harvested on the day of the harvest moon, the 15th of the 8th Moon. ‘Round’ refers to the shape of taro, of the full moon, and of certain parts of a woman’s body: “Tiny taro are preferred.”

 

Women washing taro
if Saigyo could be here,
would sing the song

 

Either the women sing the song “Washing Taro” to the famous 12th century poet Saigyo, or he sings to them, of the reality of marriage in Japan: she works hard every day in the four seasons, struggling to feed herself and the children on staple foods like taro (or potatoes) while he goes wherever husbands go, eating fancy foods in restaurants and enjoying pleasures he cannot find at home. The haiku – with the plural “women,” onna domo, suggesting the lyrics of the song -- affirms the solidarity of women replacing the loneliness of the wife while her husband goes where he pleases, doing his own thing.


 

From seclusion
he comes to peak at
his wife and kids

With one song in his ears
the pleasure-quarters linger

 

He abandoned his family long ago to join the fun and games in the pleasure-quarters; he no longer goes there, but rather than return tohis wife and kids, he stays in seclusion, with no responsibility for anyone but himself. Sometimes he peaks in on them and wonders what would of happened if . . . then he returns to his seclusion. Sometimes in his auditory brain he recalls a particular merrymaking song along with memories of the brothels where he heard and sung that song.

 

Here, from a letter to Kyorai in 1692, Basho describes a new follower who showed up at his hut in Edo.

 

That guy Shiko is good for nothing.
Starting with Kikaku, all my followers hate him,
and that is all there is to it.
When he drinks he makes a fool of himself
and dances to the Tune for Throwing Things.
At my hut he cannot contain himself.

 

The “Tune for Throwing Things” was first sung in the late 1650s in the pleasure quarters of Kyoto; by the 1680s it was popular throughout the pleasure quarters of Japan. Though Shiko’s friendship with Basho had a poor start, they became close in Basho's final yearof life, and Shiko accompanied Basho in his final months and recorded his final spoken words.

 

“Tomorrow to the enemy

our heads shall be sent”

While Kosanda
holds my sake cup
one song to sing

 

 

Tomorrow is the great battle and we are outnumbered, so we can only die. Kosanda is my retainer;; in gratitude for the years he has served, in recognition of our vow to face death together, I hand him my cup to hold while I sing one song, which will be my final song in this life.


Takigi O-Noh is a traditional Japanese musical drama illuminated by a bonfire, originally performed in March at Kofukuji Temple in Nara; it is still held on the third Friday and Saturday of May, and also at the Heian Shrine in Kyoto in June, and at Osaka Castle in September.

 

Bonfire past,
neighborhood children
practice Noh

For five spring times
preparing for life

 

Noh theater is characterized by mystical beauty – beauty which is felt rather than seen, the profound beauty of the transcendental world, and the mournful beauty of sadness and loss. The music played by drums and flute is harsh and monotonous, like all traditional Japanese music, devoid of chords and lacking the chord progressions which make music “interesting.” The singing is within a limited tonal range, with lengthy repetitive passages in a narrow dynamic range. Noh has none of the light, happy melodies that make Disney movies popular with children.

 

Ordinarily Noh is not the sort of performance that would interest children – but Noh illuminated by a bonfire is such a trip that in the days after the performance, the local children enthusiastically imitate the actors and their monotonic singing. The bonfire gives interest to Noh. Again we see Basho’s unique attention to the children's activities and consciousness of rhythm.

 

The next poet realizes that what these children are doing – imitation, postural and vocal control, emotional expression  is more than merely an silly and immature form of an Noh performance; rather it is a demonstration of the miracles of human development preparing a child for adulthood.


I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright),
bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day

                                                             Bob Marley

 

Sunshiny day
celestial maiden caresses
the rock spring

Chant of Lotus Sutra
at the window elegantly

 

In the Noh play The Feather Mantle a celestial maiden in praise for the beauty on a sunny day on Earth equal to that in Heaven, caresses the world in which the splendor never ceases. Seifu has her caress the rock spring that never stops flowing in the sunshine. Basho hears a female voice chant the Lotus Sutra which for many East Asians contains the ultimate and complete teachings of Buddha. The sutra declares that women need not reincarnate as men to reach Nirvana; rather they can do so from being women.

 

In both stanzas, the material and spiritual blend through the female. She chants not in the monotonic drone of priests, but rather elegantly, musically, as a celestial maiden caresses a spring of clear water. Her path to Enlightenment is not inside a temple, but rather beside the window watching the world in sunshine while she sings the words of Buddha.

 

 

basho4humanity@gmail.com

 






<< Ride the Energy (E-18) (E-20) Shiki’s MisDirection: >>


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