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.
Two renku stanzas both by Basho written in succession, a triplet of 17 sound-units then a couplet of 14, with continuity of theme between the two: the form of a tanka -- although not a tanka. The wonder of renku is the switch from one mind to another – however in these “tanka equivalents,” instead of we travel from one stanza to the next through Basho’s own mind.
Even monks and old men regardless forced to march Earth pounded into mochi a poor ritual offering
During the century long Warring States Period, all the men, even bald monks and grandpas were conscripted into armies. Unable to grow much food, we mix dirt in with glutinous rice to make the sacred mochi offerings to the divine spirits – who will be dissatisfied and continue to send this endless war.
This pair is undated, but before 1676, and probably before 1672 while Basho still lived in his hometown of Iga (now Mie Prefecture) about 50 km. southeast of Kyoto and traveled to Kyoto to study. One time, walking from Kyoto to Iga, apparently he spent the night in Mika no Hara, a place in Kizugawa, south of Kyoto, alongside the Kizu River which leads east to Iga.
The river wind cold midnight to the outhouse Leaving Kyoto today Mika no Hara belly painful
“Hara” is both “plain” in the place name, and also “belly.” Assuming that Basho is describing his own experience, we see that already in his twenties he suffered from the bowel disorder that ended his life two decades later in 1694. A poet who writes about going with a bowel disease to the outhouse (setchin, literally “hidden in snow.”) near a river on a midwinter night certainly can be called a poet of human experience.
Quiet temple, on verandah is spread a straw mat, He measures out herbs to trade for soybeans
This naturopathic monk, at the temple where he lives, accepts soybeans from local farmers in exchange for herbal remedies.
No longer black she scratches her scalp with a plectrum Breastfeeding on my lap what dreams do you see?
This woman has both grey hair and an infant at her breast, so imagine her as a grandmother who, after her daughter died, induces lactation to save the life of her grandchild. A plectrum is a pick for strumming a lute or shamisen, so to Japanese thought she must be a geisha, or performance artist who travels about singing and dancing. “She scratches her scalp” in difficulty understanding or accepting her fate: the death of her daughter, the three needs conflicting within her, to nurture the infant, to make a living, and to rest her aging body. The ever-present conflict of these needs drives her to distraction – thus she absent-mindedly uses her plectrum to scratch an itchy place under her hair.
Knowing nothing of grandmother’s sorrow and distraction, the child delights in the softness of her body and flavor of her milk. The old woman looks into baby’s eyes and forehead searching to see the dreams within. Unlike her own dreams gone sour, these dreams are fresh and new – and she wonders whether her grandchild will overcome the hardship of losing mother to realize those dreams.
Lilies of the field
in crescent moon shadow lined up in bloom To my dear children what can compare?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto thee that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Before my eyes the scene just as is makes a haiku -- As a child turns seven face becomes clear
Conceiving a haiku should occur naturally, organically, as one’s face develops. For Basho to see that children’s facial features transform at age seven, changing from a baby face to the “clear” features of a child, then to write a poem about this phenomenon, he must have watched the faces of many children, especially his three younger sisters. This is not something only Basho saw. He joins the many students of child development, who notice the onset of a new stage at age seven.
“Lingering on. . .” I take out the doll and look at her face Again starting to weep the cough of consumption
Basho begins with a single word of speech or thought to open the mind without specifics. The second and third lines provide the physical action which evokes memories: taking the doll down from a shelf and looking at the face. The fourth line adds deep and reoccurring emotion, and the fifth provides the context: tuberculosis, also known as “consumption” because the infection consumes the body.
Although summer neck sinks into collar thinking of love An account of my prayers shows they are worthless
Once again Basho expresses emotions through physical actions of specific body parts. Her “neck sinks into her collar” not because it is cold. The words are a physical sensory avenue to her inner feelings: not only is she disappointed by the failure of gods and Buddhas to fulfill her desires: she no longer believes they listen at all, or even that they exist.
As gracefull as the slender figure of a goddess she wrings out red dye into the white rapids
She wrings out fabric soaked in the red dye madder into the swift current which carries away all traces of red. Sato Hiroaki says Basho “painted with words a picture of a Chinese goddess that Utamaro – ukiyoe artist famous for sexual imagery -- might have drawn with a brush.”
Wings flap in sequence wild geese under moon, Every mouth shall sample this year’s new sake
(Because the two-line segment comes before the three-liner, this is not really tanka form; but is close enough to be worth considering.) In a V formation the updraft from one bird lifts the bird behind, enabling the flock to conserve energy. Watching them past the moon, Basho see a wave motion flowing through the ‘V,’ a ‘force’ or organizing principle determined by the physics of flight. Rice is polished, steamed, and fermented with mold and yeast for a month to produce raw and rough-tasting ‘new sake’ which must be aged for a year, the organizing force of fermentation acting everywhere in the alcohol to give a smooth taste Japanese drinkers enjoy. Everyone has gathered to sip the new sake from this year’s rice crop. Miyawaki sees in the stanza, “a moment of happiness in which satisfaction mingles with expectation.”
Stones and trees said to be illusions yet we worship - I rinse my soup bowl to eat from again
Buddhism tells us all things are illusions; Shinto says worship natural things. How can we worship illusions?
The paradox is resolved by being physically conscious of the bowl connecting past, present, and future:
the bowl with food in it, then clean and empty, then with food in it again. The food is both real and an illusion, and so we worship.
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.
