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
Madame Sonome told me that for long she has wished to invite me over, so for the evening of November 14th we made preparations to gather at her home.
Basho as guest of honor begins the renku sequence:
White chrysanthemum no speck of dust rises to meet the eye
It is late autumn so chrysanthemums bloom in Sonome’s garden. She has arranged a few in a vase in the decorative alcove in the room where poets gather.The noble chrysanthemum with many layers of tightly packed petals stands tall on its stalk in the garden or in a flower vase. Chrysanthemums come in many colors, but the white ones are most striking in their pure white fullness, the essence of ‘purity’ in the chill weather of November. This greeting verse expresses appreciation for the refinement in Sonome’s home, and gratitude for her hospitality -- while on another level, it honors the purity in Sonome, or in any woman.
Basho borrows phrases from Saigyo;
On the mirror’s unclouded any dust
that meets the eye must be of this world
Saigyo sees purity without gender, and so without life. Basho is looking for, and so he sees, another sort of purity in living and active women. It is essential to realize that this is a greeting-verse from a guest to his hostess: it communicates a personal message of appreciation for Sonome’s skill and care in maintaining her house so that the environment adds to the success and happiness of today’s gathering, and also his appreciation for Sonome as a woman.
Shiko tells us Basho said about WHITE CRYSANTHEMUM
“This is a verse about the beauty of Sonome’s elegance. Because I knew that today’s one meeting would be the remnant of a lifetime, I thought to watch for a vision in this hour.
Basho usually writes of ‘seeing’ what is hidden; here he speaks of concentrating on the woman he can actually see before his eyes - for this will be his final chance to see her – but also looks for
what is within and hidden.
According to Shiko who was there at the time, Basho said the verse is about the “beauty of Sonome’s elegance.” Japanese scholars obviously either do not know, or do not approve of Shiko’s account, since they ignore it. Ueda translates five Japanese scholars’ comments on this verse: here are three of them:
“I would prefer to read this strictly as a poem on white chrysanthemums.”
“The beauty of the flower has no reference to anything else.”
“Basho was just writing a poem on flowers; he had no thought of Sonome at all; later on,
it came to imply the poet’s respect for the hostess with no deliberate intention on his part.”
What?! Basho was at her home, and the haiku was a greeting verse to his hostess. Of course it expresses respect. It is difficult to believe a so-called scholar could be disconnected from the circumstances. Here are three fine examples of androcentric thinking. To these scholars (if Ueda’s translations are accurate) any
notion that Basho cares about women is an anathema.
Sonome followed Basho with:
White chrysanthemum no speck of dust rises to meet the eye
Morning moon makes water with crimson leaves flow
Sonome counters the Purity of Basho’s stanza with a process Japanese traditionally consider impure and defiling, yet Sonome says is pure: menstruation -- the water (blood) with fallen crimson leaves (discarded lining of the uterus) are made to flow by the Moon. (Of course no scholar would even consider such an interpretation. I hope you, on the other hand, will.)Basho focuses all on one element, the flower’s whiteness. Sonome’s metaphor for menstruation is complex, even crowded, with three distinct nature images –moon, water, and leaves - yet without ugliness or disgust: “no speck of dust rises to meet the eye.”
In WHITE CHYSANTHEM Basho sees in Sonome the purity, impeccability, divinity for which he has always searched. Through MORNING MOON MAKES WATER, we can, if we choose to, see t h a t s a m e i d e a l i n w o m a n ’ s b o d y f u n c t i o n s.Sonome rejects her patriarchal culture’s image of menstruation as defilement;she says “No! It is pure as a white chrysanthemum – pure but complicated.”
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
