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.
The pregnant woman folds the fabric she has woven and puts it aside, then the flowers which have blossomed and wilted near the “wife’s door” she burns in the woodstove so the fragrance of flowers wafts through the kitchen. Is this the formation of a mother?
A young woman goes to the Big City to live, work, and marry. Pregnant, she returns to her natal home where her mother can care for her before and during birth, then help out with the new-born. Basho fulfils the theme of pregnancy with the specific actions of this woman with swollen belly. Having woven the long piece of fabric on her loom, now she carefully aligns the two ends to fold in half, then quarters, then eighths, until she has a neat pile to put aside and later sew into a robe for her baby. Japanese are famous for folding paper to form origami figures; here the woman folds fabric to create the essential quality of Japanese society: order and regularity. Meanwhile the life-process folds her baby into a fetal position in her womb.
Then she takes some of the remains of wilted flowers from the “wife’s door,” the door between kitchen and back yard which only she passes through, and throws them into the woodstove. Modern women equip their homes with air fresheners – synthetic chemicals in a plastic bottle – but Japanese women of old simply recycled nature of this purpose. Basho sees the pregnant woman in the place she herself was born, weaving fabric for baby clothes, spreading sweet aroma throughout the kitchen, she generates positive energy for the new life: the ordinary but eternal work of women to keep children warm and home fragrant.
I translate in accord with the BRZ’s concluding comment: “is this the formation of a mother?” “She”, like Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings films, is definitely present, and her actions altogether real and equally magical. As he so often does, Basho delights in his use of active lively verbs: she folds life in order and kindles the fragrance of love.
Basho wrote hundreds of poems about women and children, about friendship, love, and compassion, possibly the most pro-female, child-centered, and life-affirming works in world literature.
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.
