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.
Feminist Tokuza Akiko says that in Basho’s time and society,
“criticism of women’s intelligence, autonomy, and moral worth
(was) essential to the total subordination of women that society demanded.”
A pretty grim prognosis, however Basho was an exception. He never, not once, criticizes a woman or child, and his many verses affirming the young and female should be part of world education.
Giving birth to love in the world she adorns herself
Here is a renku in which his follower Shiko and Basho create the experience of a man who does care about giving birth to love in the world; rather he oppresses and subordinate women:
Vulgar words to insult the wife and daughter
All the guests sit there cold, freezing at the kotatsu
Shiko uses vulgar words to describe father’s insults. In a patriarchal society, verbal abuse of females is so common, it goes by unnoticed. Shiko, though he is a man, notices. His six words, with great efficiency,
convey the nature of patriarchal abuse - yet does so in a vacuum; there is no background to make the experience real.
Basho supplies the background. A kotatsu is a heater (charcoal in Basho’s time, electric in ours) with a table on top and a blanket to hold the warmth around the lower body while sitting. The table seats four, so Father
(who is, to some extent, drunk) is sitting with three guests. The wife and daughter are not among the ones sitting; rather they are preparing food, snacks, or alcohol, and serve them to the men at the kotatsu.
Shiko and Basho have created an astonishing portrait of a dysfunctional family. Father verbally abuses the females even when visitors are over, while the guests sit there shocked by what they are hearing, frozen in place, even sitting at a warm kotatsu. The viciousness of the “vulgar words to insult” produces a coldness even more bitter than the seasonal cold. We wonder how much worse his abuse becomes when guests are not here. We also wonder how the wife and daughter support each other in these circumstances.
Shiko and Basho have set up this little hub, around which we can build an array of human experience.
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.
