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
Basho’s birthplace, Iga (Mie-ken, east of Nara) was also home to Japan’s leading school of ninjitsu, the techniques of hiding, infiltration and attack by those mysterious undercover agents. The Chinese characters for ninja、忍者、mean “hidden person.” Ninja from Iga fought in the civil wars that wracked Japan in the 15th and 16th centuries, but by Basho’s birth in 1644 Japan had been at peace for two generations and ninjitsu had become a martial art (and underground spy ring?). Basho grew up with ninja heritage everywhere around him; for instance his friend-in-youth Doho belonged by adoption to the Hattori clan, “the leaders of the ninja community in Iga.” On the surface they did no spying, but who knows what was going on in ninja secrecy?
Male Ninja Prologue
The most famous Hattori was Hanzo. In 1582 Oda Nobunaga, had ended the civil wars and brought the country under his rule. The future shogun Ieyasu, then merely a retainer of Nobunaga, was sightseeing near Osaka when he learned that one of Nobunaga’s generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, had assassinated Nobunaga and had agents looking for Ieyasu to kill him too. Ieyasu had no army with him and was in quite a predicament – but he did have Hattori Hanzo. The ninja brought Ieyasu in secret through the mountains to Iga and
gathered 300 ninja to guard him on the road to his home base near Nagoya. Ieyasu later said crossing Iga was the most dangerous thing he ever did.
In Edo, Hanzo formed the ‘band of Iga’ to guard the Hanzo Gate to Ieyasu’s castle, which gave its name to Tokyo’s Hanzomon subway line. Hattori Hanzo is also the hero of countless ninja movies, video games and manga as well as the ancestor of the guy in Hawaii who forged the sword for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.
17th Century Painting of Hattori Hanzo
Female Ninja Prologue
A female ninja is called a kunoichi, written くノ一. This is the hiragana for ku, the katakana for the possessive no, and the Chinese character for ichi, ‘one.. These three elements fit together, as in a tiny woodblock puzzle, to form the character onna for ‘woman’.
く ＋ ノ ＋ 一 → 女 Ku no ichi onna
According to a book published in 1676 in Iga, kunoichi was the ninja code word for ‘woman’— as for ‘man’, the code word was tachikara from the character for man 男, which is ‘power,’ chikara, 力 under the ‘rice-fields,’ ta 田. Kunoichi is also said to be the three characters for ‘nine-talents-one.’ Nine is the number of orifices on a male body: two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, a mouth, anal and urogenital opening. In women, the uro- and the -genital are – as you probably have noticed -- separate, so the woman has nine plus one, and if she is a kunoichi, she knows how to use that talent too.
A kunoichi She looks more scary than the guy in the background
Little Ninja Prologue
In Iga nowadays, the ninja connection is a far greater tourist attraction – especially for young boys -- than the Basho connection. Ninja patrol the castle grounds (now Ueno Park) in robes that cover every square inch of skin, so as not to show up in the starlight while climbing a castle wall. Of course in the old days the robes were navy-blue which is indistinguishable in the night (that was the point) but the modern ninja are red, purple, yellow, pink, etc. and come in daddy, mommy and child sizes. A stand near the park rents ninja
costumes (complete with plastic sword strapped to back – seen in photo) for the day (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; 700 yen per person) so families can dress up and wander freely about the famous ninja castle.
This is where Basho came from.
Little Ninja at Iga Castle
The smaller boy holds up one finger; his big brother makesthe same gesture, but hides it.
This is a kuji goshinho,the ninja symbol for a nine-word chant which will make them invincible.
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.
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
