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.
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.
