Customer Reviews (2)

misrepresented
the book was pressented as being basho poetry but was bat poetry by harrison

Nonsense
First, do not be deceived by this title.This volume has nothing to do with hokku/haiku poet Basho.NONE of his verses (in translation) are included within.Instead we have a collection of juvenile poems, limericks, random thoughts and utter nonsense supposedly inspired by the real Basho.Everything within (including a fictitious "interview" with Basho) is written as comedy and never refers to the Japanese poet's works.Truly bizarre and completely unfunny. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Unique Perspective
Writing about the great haiku poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), in both Japanese and English, is widespread, and translations of his poems and prose works are myriad.In "Basho and His Interpreters," Basho authority Makoto Ueda gives us something new: an anthology of commentary.

The book features 255 of Basho's poems, arranged in chronological order and spanning his entire life.After each poem are selections from several Japanese commentators--sometimes just two or three, sometimes five or more for especially important or well-known poems.Commentators range from contemporaries of Basho to modern-day thinkers and writers.

Basho has traditionally been revered, and if the book has a weakness it is that the comments on a given poem sometimes blur together as too many cite the same source poem and lavish the same praise.(The pattern is sometimes broken up--for example, by Masaoka Shiki who, writing at the end of the 19th century, felt Basho had been too much loved and sought explicitly to take him down a peg.)More to the point, the best selections of comments reveal the more subtle disputes between interpreters.In regard to one poem ("how solemn!", p. 231), one writer says "The poet's virtuosity here is almost intimidating"; but another states flatly, "This is not a good poem."In another poem (p. 249), commentators debate whether one cicada or several is present.

In addition to the commentaries proper, Ueda adds concise surveys of each year of Basho's life, with emphasis on his artistic development and poetic activities.Ueda's writing is lucid, which is reflected in the poems and commentaries: the translations of the haiku, if not daring, are accurate and perfectly useful in the context; the commentaries are also translated into highly readable prose.

Taken together, these materials should appeal to a range of readers: those interested in Basho on an academic level will find new points of view (and without the work of sifting through the voluminous body of criticism history has left us), while those new to the poet can learn to appreciate the beauty and scope of both his work and his life.

~

A must for anyone interested in Basho
This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in Basho, haiku, or Japanese literature.Ueda combines Basho's own verse with interpretations by well-known haikai commentators (including Akutagawa, Rohan, Hagiwara, and Abe Jiro etc) and entries from Basho's own travel diaries, in which he describes many of the situations that inspired many of his poems.This is a good introduction for beginners and afficionados alike, for it provides a great deal of background information and a wide scale of interpretations that add depth and connotation to the readers understanding of each verse.The book also includes a glossary of terms as well as a section of short biographies for the commentators.

basho's verse in depth
this book is great as a collection of representative verses by basho, the greatest master in the haikai tradition.
i'll just add to the other reviewer's remarks that this book can also be read from cover to cover so you can get a feel for basho's development as a poet. overall, a nice book.

A Good Overview of a Master
This is a great book just to browse at random.The interpretations given after each haiku are an interesting twist.Reading them after letting the haiku soak in is somewhat like sharing the poems with other enthusiasts. Some of them also shed a fascinating light on the circumstances of theircomposition and Basho's attitudes.And if haiku just makes you scratchyour head, the remarks will show you interesting ways of looking at eachone. Ueda helpfully adds biographical sketches between sections to put thepoems into context and provides the original Japanese and word for wordtranslations, and although I have found better translations of individualpoems, his are adequate at least and often elegant.Basho of course isgreat, and this is the perfect book to linger over when you're in athoughtful mood. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent English Basho
Basho's "Oku no Hosomichi" has been translated into English numerous times, but this version by Cid Corman distinguishes itself by its faithfulness to the original.Corman preserve's Basho's sentences--rambling, meandering affairs that most translators break up into several pieces--almost exactly, bringing the immortal poet's greatest prose work into English in all its run-on glory.

Corman's translations of the haiku in the text (prose and poetry, here, are integral to one another) are idiosyncratic.He has taken the "gist" of the Japanese haiku and turned them into original English poetry.Sometimes he produces something comprehensible; other times he maintains the Japanese word order so slavishly that the poem slides from elliptical to simply enigmatic.

The translation has a few stylistic quirks.Besides sentence length and organization, Corman follows the near-total omission of the pronoun "I" throughout, a practice perfectly acceptable in Japanese but which, in English, leads to a handful of especially odd passive constructions.Corman may also leave in one too many Japanese words when a translation--despite the introductory protests--would probably have worked just as well.(Informative notes do clarify unusual terms and allusions.)In addition, this edition is sprinkled with formatting inconsistencies and the notes, in particular, suffer from sloppy typographical errors.However, such does not overshadow the translation itself.

The book (a pleasant 5x7 size) is liberally illustrated with ink drawings by Hide Oshiro, spare depictions of scenes from the text.Cid Corman's version of the Narrow Road is not only among the most accurate in style and tone, it is simply wildly different from the run of more well-known English Bashos (such as Sam Hamill's or Donald Keene's).Anyone with an interest in Japanese literature, history, or this particular poet must read this masterful translation.

~

Gives The Feeling of the Original
(Please see William J. Higginson's excellent review of the earlier, Echo Press edition of this book.)I have Ueno Yozo's scholarly edition of Oku No Hosomichi which I've been going over, section by section, with a real scholar of Edo Japanese.My little knowledge of Japanese allows me to understand the differences between modern Japanese and the original, and yes, there's a density, a quickness, and a terseness, in the original that Cid Corman's translation faithfully captures in English.I give a great deal of credit for this to Cid's co-translator, Kamaike Susumu, and to Cid's love for just these qualities in poetry, which he learned from such earlier masters as Ezra Pound, and of course from his great teacher William Carlos Williams, and was on the road to perfecting for himself when he did this project and published it (in 1961) in Origin magazine.Cid's style was a good "fit" for this project--in other words, as the Japanese put it--Cid had "en" or destiny when he undertook this translation with Kamaike-san, for the plain truth is, Cid Corman did not know Japanese.Even after all of his many years of living in Japan, he was not able to speak, read or write it.Cid was absolutely honest about this, however, and you'll see that he shares top billing with Kamaike-san on the title page.Startled?Well, I'd argue that the top English translation of this Japanese classic being produced by a non-Japanese reader, writer, and speaker, is not quite as startling as Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage being hailed by Civil War veterans as being the most accurate rendition of their experience of war in print.Scholars argue that Crane's psychological dynamic allowed him to present the "truth" of conflict.I'd argue that the same sort of dynamic--albeit stylistic--was at work with Cid and Basho.On this point, I differ from Higginson. ... Read more

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With the utmost economy and skill, the haiku poet paints a vast mural on a narrow canvas. Working within the strict 17-syllable limits of the traditional Japanese form, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and other masters evoke elements of the natural world to conjure up timeless moods and emotions. This volume features dozens of Basho's poems as well as works by his predecessors and ten of his disciples--Kikaku, Ransetsu, Joso, and Kyoroku among them. Intended principally for readers with no knowledge of Japanese literature, this treasury includes a transliteration of the original Japanese for each verse; most poems also include a brief explication.
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Basho in His Time
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) is certainly the best-known haiku poet of alltime, even though he never heard the word "haiku". What he diddo, in his own time, was (a) write and teach the writing of "haikai norenga", the popular style of linked, collaborative poetry of his time,(b) collect the largest number of followers (or "disciples") ofany poet of his day, (c) write a number of short prose pieces with shortverses he called hokku (haibun), (d) write a number of independent hokku(which we now call "haiku"), and (e) write several traveldiaries, the last of which, "Narrow Road of the Interior" goes bya number of titles in English and is one of the great masterpieces of worldliterature.

You can find out about all this from other books. However, inProfessor Shirane's book, you will find out more: Basho was not the onlyperson doing these things during his lifetime. And although nobody islikely to say that Basho was not the most important poet of his day, he wasdefinitely influenced in all his work by the trends of the time. When funnyverses were the vogue, early in his career, he wrote funny verses. WhenChinese poetry became a major influence on the poetry scene, his writingsreflected his own rich knowledge of that Chinese heritage. When other poetsstarted advocating a "lighter" style, more directly concernedwith the things of daily life, Basho took up "lightness" as animportant element of his art.

Basho's uniqueness does not lie in hisunique type of poetry, but in his great ability to ride the wave of fashionin a common type of poetry and make something rich and lasting from it. Byplacing Basho and his work--with many fine translations--in the context ofhis own day and his own culture, Prof. Shirane gives us a deeper, richerBasho than we knew before. And, he helps us grasp some basics of Japaneseculture, and of haiku, that we probably missed in other books on thesubject. ... Read more

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A small book of Japanese Haiku ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Misplaced Emphasis
Regardless of the title, Ginsberg features minorly in this- other poets got more translations in.
And most of this book is a lengthy study of Renga, not haiku or the difficulties of translation (go read "After babel" or "Le Ton De Beau Marot" for real books on that subject.)
And one review got it entirely wrong- Zen has no role in the author's review, he specifically inveighing and excorciating the blind assumption of Zen influence in haikus.

Perfect little book - the same poem never grows stale.
One hundred frogs is a terrific look at just how differently poets can make a work their own.By writing a hundred different versions of "Frog Jumps / Into pond / sound of water" these poets demonstrate the diversity versions of the same poem can yield.

Bring on the "Another Hundred Frogs" sequel - I can't get enough of these!

The sound of silence
"A haiku is the expression of a temporary enlightenment, in which we see into the life of things." (R. H. Blyth)

In this small book, Hiroaki Sato has put together more than 100 translations of the most famous haiku by the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho (1644-94). He has added a ten-page introduction to the work of Matsuo Basho and his most famous poem "Old Pond" which, in one of the most literal translations, reads as follows:

Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound) [transl. Fumiko Saisho]

"One Hundred Frogs" illustrates how many riches can be mined from a single poem, and how much fun it can be to try to capture the essence of a poem in another language. It also teaches a lesson in humility: It is just as impossible to translate poetry unchanged from one language to another as it is impossible to translate anything unchanged from "reality" into language. Ironically, a haiku tries just that. The art of writing haikus is strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism. The mind of a Zen master, it is said, is like a mirror: it reflects reality "as it is" and remains unmoved. A haiku, ideally, reflects reality like a mirror. This is an impossible task, of course. The haiku does not reflect reality, it reflects the poet's interpretation of reality. In this sense, the translations in this book are interpretations of interpretations of reality.

The translators approach the poem "Old Pond" with quite different attitudes. Some take a serious approach and, for example, try to retain the 5-7-5-syllables structure of the haiku: "The old pond, yes, and / A frog is jumping into / The water, and splash." [G.S. Fraser], or "The silent old pond / a mirror of ancient calm, / a frog-leaps-in splash" [Dion O'Donnol]. The latter translation also tries to highlight the tension between silence/calm and sound/movement that is built into the poem. In this context, it is interesting to know that Zen Buddhism does not interpret silence and sound as opposites but as extreme expressions of a unique, indivisible reality - like the north pole and south pole of a magnetized stick: opposites, yet parts of one object. There is no sound without silence. There is no silence without sound. My favorite "serious" translation is the version by Cid Corman, a contemporary American poet: "old pond / frog leaping / splash". After thinking so much about how to translate the poem, this is a refreshingly simple solution. In my opinion, it comes closest to the Zen spirit of the poem. And "splash" appears to be the most reasonable way to solve the question of what is "the water's sound"?

Other translators take a more light-hearted look. Bernard Lionel Einbond translates: "Antic pond - / frantic frog jumps in - / gigantic sound." Antic-frantic-gigantic is a quite amusing caricature of the seriousness of other translations. Then there is a sonnet version and a limerick version. The limerick goes: "There once was a curious frog / who sat by a pond on a log / And to see what resulted, / In the pond catapulted / With a water-noise heard around the bog."

And others again are even more playful. One George M. Young, Jr., contributed what he claimed was a yellowed newspaper clipping from his file: "MAFIA HIT MAN POET: NOTE FOUND PINNED TO LAPEL OF DROWNED VICTIM'S DOUBLE-BREASTED SUIT!!!'Dere wasa dis frogg / Gone jumpa offa da logg / Now he inna bogg.' - Anonymous." It is one of my favorites because of its irreverence for the importance of Zen. An attitude, by the way, that is very much in the spirit of Zen.

The most playful translation of the poem, however, is the one that the reader can compose himself by flipping the pages of the book with his thumb: what emerges is the visual image of an ink-painted frog jumping into a pool. Without a sound. Ironic. Funny. Apt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A way in...
An Introduction to Haiku is a solid way into the practically untranslatable world of Haiku.It is terse while still being thorough.By including both a transliteration and a literal translation of the Japanese, the reader is able to appreciate not only the feel of the language but also the problems that arise in its translation into English.

Haiku considered. . . .
Haiku, well done, is an enchanting poetic form.This book, put together by Harold Henderson, provides a nice introduction for those who want a deeper understanding of this art form. Best of all is the array of poems presented here--from Basho, Buson, Issa, Shiki, and others.

Haiku itself is deceptively simple--3 lines: 5 syllables in the first, seven in the second, five in the third, for seventeen in total. But it is much more than that. And that is what makes the first part of this book so useful. The Preface and Introduction provide a literate consideration to the nature--and difficulty of drafting--haiku. Even more challenging is translating Japanese haiku into English, according to Anderson (who does the actual translation in this volume). He notes, for instance, an Italian adage, "traduttore, traditore," which--he claims--means that a translator is probably a traitor.To change 17 syllables of Japanese haiku to a meaningful and still poetic English format is devilish difficult. He says (Page vii): "My intention has been to write English verse which will be faithful to the spirit of the originals, and will at the same time approximate literal translation. . . ." Chapters I and II provide a brief but helpful sense of the nature of haiku itself, from its origins to its nature to its evolution.

And then the book moves into the poets themselves, selecting four masters of haiku, plus selected other practitioners of the art. In the process the poets are discussed, their individual attributes summarized, and--best of all from my view--selections of their work presented.Since Basho has been my favorite over time, I'll simply present some of the haiku that seem special to me.

"On the Road to Nara"
Oh, these spring days!
A nameless little mountain,
Wrapped in morning hazel.


"Leaving the House of a Friend"

Out comes the bee
From deep among the peony pistils--
Oh, so reluctantly!

"Twilight"

"Hawk-eyes too will fail,
Now that the darkness comes"--
So chirp the quail.

So, a delightful work providing background to haiku and some wonderful examples of the masters and their craft.

Beautifully done
As Henderson points out in his introduction, most translators are traitors.Though this is so in many cases, the pieces that he selected work well and push the envelope of what good translation of poetry of all kinds should be, regardless of the original language.

This is an excellent pocket anthology for any lover of Haiku and other short form poetry to carry with them always.

Masterful Introduction to Haiku
I have rarely encountered better translations of Haiku.Henderson brought the extended meanings of the words across.Double and triple entendres, startling juxtapositions, contextual clues, everything.These are not mere literal translations--they work on multiple levels to extend the meaning of the poetry, to reflect the possible readings by literate Japanese readers.

Poetic translation is an art that requires deep understanding of two languages, poetic heritages, and metaphorical/imagistic libraries.Henderson's translations are unique in their quality.

Essential introduction for those interested in haiku
Although Henderson's book is out-of-print (originally published in 1958), and his translations are stylistically out-of-date (i.e., rhymed English haiku), this is an essential, pocket-sized anthology.Hendersonintersperses his chronological presentation of haiku, in bothtransliterized Japanese (romaji) with English translation, by majorhistorical masters with analysis throughout.I am on my second paperback-- the first fell apart from constant use! ... Read more

Product Description
1020 Haiku in Translation: The Heart of Basho, Buson and Issa features the most representative works of the three greatest haiku poets, Basho, Buson, and Issa.Each of the 1020 haiku has been meticulously translated into a poetic English form, while preserving the exact content and flow of the original.Notes, focusing on the meaning of uncommon words, geographical features, historical information, and cultural background have been provided to help non-Japanese readers to more fully understand.Elegant artwork and calligraphy appear throughout the book.1020 Haiku in Translation: The Heart of Basho, Buson and Issa, a gateway to a new view of nature and your life, and featuring many haiku that have been translated into English for the first time, will appeal to all students of literature as well as general readers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Fabulous!
This is the best volume of translated haiku I have ever seen. I join in singing the praises of this book along with the other reviewers.

There is a rich amount of Buson haiku in this collection. To date, to my continued amazement, there is only ONE volume solely devoted to Buson in English, that of Edith Shiffert. So this volume helps correct that egregious oversight.

I also like the strong typeface for the English translations. Some might quibble with the capitablized first word of each line, and some might quibble with the stop at the end of the translation. I don't mind these at all. I am used to this in RH Blyth's translations, and these are better than Blyth's in my opinion. Also I think modern haiku poet Alexis Rotella prefers final period punctuation in her own haiku.

Some like Lucien Stryk seem to prefer a minimalist approach to translating haiku. The present translators have struck the right balance between too many and too few words.

And most of all, the translations are themselves good poetry - lyrical, words well chosen, the ordering of the words very artistic but not too much as to become "poetry" in the western sense. The Japanese quality has been preserved very well.

All in all a tremendous contribution to translated haiku by the three great masters, Basho, Buson, and Issa. Three cheers!!

The Art of Haiku
1020 Haiku in Translation: The Heart of Basho, Buson, and Issa, Translated by Takafumi Saito and William R. Nelson illustrates the art of translation and of haiku. This is a must read book for anyone who loves poetry. The book is appropriately organized by seasons. The beauty of the haiku are matched by the exquisite artwork by Munetaka Sakaguchi. Whether you are a teacher, a student, a writer or a reader who has an interest in haiku, this book belongs on your shelf. Translation is an art and Saito and Nelson have demonstrated their talent and artistic ability in rendering these beautiful poems into English. (Reviewed by Professor Horne, Chair of English, University of Northern British Columbia)

Great
This book is a great introduction to Haiku poetry. The author discusses the types of Haiku topics and the approach to each. I was suprised at the imagry I was able to congure up reading the poems and I learned to appreciate this literary style.

The author explains how Haiku has been translated and that due to the limited wording and the anchient language, scholars have debated some of the subtle neuances of the poem. Hoowever, the poems are beautiful.

I highly recommend this book.

Wonderful Collection
This is what it advertises-- 1020 Haiku from the three great haiku masters-- Basho, Buson, and Issa.The beauty of this book is that there is romanized/phonetic translation of the Japanese... so you can read the English translation, then sound out the Japanese syllables to hear the sound of the haiku (at least an approximation) in the original Japanese.Finally, the hirigana/katakana/kanji are supplied for each haiku, as well, so if you read Japanese, you can read the original.

Misters Nelson and Saito explain that they chose to translate into an English version that they thought best captured the original Japanese intention.They elected not to retain a 5-7-5 or approximate format, although they did keep predominately three lines for each haiku.That being said, I have seen more artistic translations of the common haiku I have read elsewhere in other books-- all in all, I wasn't that happy with the translations... the percentage of haiku that really grabbed me was not as high as other books I've read.But that may just be me, or the fact that out of 1020 haiku, I've seen the best ones already in other books with less.

The book itself is trade paperback in style... about 8x6 inches, 1.5 inches thick.The paper is that thick, grainy, acid-free-looking stuff... it has nice texture that should last.The book is sparsely and tastefully illustrated with Japanese brushstroke paintings and calligraphy throughout.About a dozen or so of the more famous haiku are repeated in the calligraphy independently on full pages as stand-alone decoration.

As tradition, the haiku are divided into seasons.Each haiku poet gets a section in each season.Each section is further sub-divided into areas such as "Flowers", "Eating and Food", "Insects","People Working" and things like that.The headings are organized alphabetically, but somewhat arbitrarily chosen.The footnotes on selected haiku preodminately elaboarate on Japanese traditions, historical events, and geography that may not be commonly known-- there is no real artistic critique or elaboration.There is an index in the back which organizes the haiku alphabetically by the first Japanese syllable/word.

The preface itself does little in the way of explaining the why of the book and how they chose to translate the original Japanese.There is not a lot, if anything, on philosophy or history, or insight into this type of poetry.

Sheer Joy
It has been many years since I have felt such joy at the physical beauty of a book: the intelligence and elegance of the design, the parallel texts, the foreword, the beauty of the poetry, the architecture of the sequence, the generous size of the print, the integration of the art work and written characters in the page layouts--all of these things and more.What a lovely gift to the world.Don't miss this. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Zen, poetry, and (worthwhile) literary criticism
Aitken Roshi is considered by many the dean of American Zen masters.In this book he combines his Zen insight with his university training in liturature to explain Basho's poetry.The book should be read by anyone interested in Zen, and perhaps even more by anyone interested in poetry or literary criticism, since it shows what a wise person can do improve our reading of poetry.If you love Basho or haiku in general, then this book is a must have.

It is terrible that this book is out of print.

Self-effacement as the path to authenticity.
A ZEN WAVE :Basho's Haiku and Zen.Translated by Robert Aitken. 192 pp.New York and Tokyo : Weatherhill, 1978 and Reissued.

All of us, perhaps, need a bit of help when starting to read haiku. As the shortest of all verse forms, with its mere seventeen syllables,it doesn't look like much of a poem at all to the uninitiated, andthey may wonder what the fuss is all about.

In 'A Zen Wave,' Robert Aitken, who is a noted American Zenist and competent in Japanese, has had the extremely useful idea of compilinga small anthology of haiku by Basho (1644-1694), and providing eachhaiku with its own full commentary.After finishing the book, readers will have acquired a background in both haiku and Zen, and will be able to further explore haiku by themselves in an informed way.

In his brief 5-page Introduction Aitken writes:

"... the heart of Basho's haiku is the very foundation of human perception of things - mind itself.Operating superficially, the mind is random in its activity and stale in its insights and images. With practice and experience, however, it is recognized as the empty infinity of the universe and of the self" (pages 18-19).

This statement may gain in meaning if we set it alongside anobservation made the great Zen Master Dogen (1200-1253), who wrote:

"Conveying the self to the myriad things to authenticate them is delusion; the myriad things advancing to authenticate the self is enlightenment" (Tr., F. H. Cook, 'Sounds of Valley Streams,' page 66).

The haiku poet is a person who has 'emptied' himself or herself, who has created a space, an "empty infinity" or 'openness,' in whichthe myriad things can come forward and declare themselves.Haiku capture those moments, and the greatest haiku present us with "the vital experience of the thing itself" (Aitken, page 21).Haiku, therefore, are not so much words about things; they aim rather to present us witha true perception of the thing itself.

'A Zen Wave' presents us with a total of twenty-six of Basho's haiku.For each of them we are given Aitken's translation, the romanized Japanese of the original, and its literal word-by-word translation. Then follow a few words on THE FORM, which in turn are followed by Aitken's very full COMMENTARY.These commentaries are enriched by the inclusion of many other poems, both Japanese and Chinese.The book, which is illustrated with eight photographs, is rounded out with a Glossary of Selected Terms, a table of Japanese Equivalents of Chinese Names, and a short section of Notes giving details of sources.

Here, with my slash marks to indicate line breaks, is how Aitken has handled the first haiku, one of Basho's most famous:

"The old pond; / A frog jumps in - / The sound of the water.

Furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto

Old pond! / frog jumps in / water of sound" (page 25).

Simple though it may seem, we should note that Basho hadto work very hard to attain the state of 'openness' that we find in this poem.Itwas written when he was forty-two years old after many years of effort, and it marks his coming of age as a mature poet.Aitken comments:"Basho presents his own mind as this timeless, endless pond, serene andpotent" (page 26).

Ideally haiku should be like a gentle explosion in the mind.Better still, they are the frog which plops into the pond of our mind, and sets up an ever-widening series of ripples, concentric circles which as they spread outwards to embrace more and more, end up by bringing the whole cosmos into view.

What is the "old pond"?Basho's mind and your mind certainly.But what else?Could it be the Unborn Buddha Mind which we all share?And what about the frog?Is it 'just a frog'?Or is it something infinitely precious?As for the "sound" - this too should be allowed to work on one's sensibility, forit will suggest different things to different readers.

There is much excellent commentary in this book, andmany other fine haiku.A particular favorite of mine deals with a tiny plant, thenazuna or Sheperd's Purse, which reads:

"When I look carefully - / Nazuna is blooming / Beneath the hedge (page 74).

Five pages of Aitken's interesting comment follow the poem, which include a quotation from the famous Zen scholar, D. T. Suzuki, who wrote of the nazuna, a plant which many would dismiss as 'just a weed' :

"We are blatantly given up to the demonstration of self-conceit, self-delusion, and unashamed arrogance.We do not seem now to cherish any such feelings as inspired Basho to notice the flowering nazunaplant. . . . (page 75).

Aitken feels that "Basho is teaching us religion with his nazuna haiku," and how the denial of the nazuna is, as Suzuki points out, "self-delusion" (page 75), and I quite agree.One of the more important things we have to learn from haiku is the importance of the ordinary - because, in fact, nothing is ordinary, and we shouldlearn to distrust the word 'just.'

For readers of Aitken's book whose appetite has been whetted, there aremany other books of haiku.One particular work I can strongly recommend (if you can find it), and which Aitken himself regarded highly, is the 4-volume 'Haiku' by R. H. Blyth, volumes which like Aitken's are also bilingual, rich in commentary, and illustrated.I can't resist ending with one of my favorites by another famous haiku poet, Buson (1715-1783), from Blyth Volume 4 'Autumn - Winter' (page 224):

"The drizzling winter rain / Quietly soaks / The roots of the camphor tree."

Allow these words to quietly penetrate your sensibility, just as therain quietly soaks the roots of the camphor tree.

Are we wise to dismiss such events as being beneath our notice because merely 'ordinary'?Or should we rather, like the haiku poets, get self out of the way and allow the myriad things to come forward and disclose themselves, and in authenticating themselves authenticate us?

The best translation of Basho's haiku
"In this book, Robert Aitken gives us the haiku in Japanese, then a word-for-word translation, as well as his own translation.He then goes on to comment on why he chose the translation he did, and also how each haikurelates to the practice of Zen. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Peaceful essence of haiku
This book is beautiful beyong words. The book comprises two parts: first is the intrduction of the four most celebrated haiku masters: Basho, Buson, Issa and shiki and second part is the representative works by each haiku poets plus many ohters. The introduction is illuminating and informative and the translation and the selection of haiku is among the best. The entire book is also a collections of amazing photographs of nature done by John Cleare. This is a book that has captured the essence of peaceful and elegant haiku.

Lovely
Lovely edition.....very reasonable price; as with all good poetry, and especially with a collection so handsomely
produced....."priceless." ... Read more

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classic Japanese, tr Corman ... Read more

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Gary Barwin and derek beaulieu’s seamless cross-Canada collaboration has resulted in frogments from the frag pool: haiku after Basho. This collection of poetry mixes joy with rigour, playfulness with contemplation, and the absurd with poetic passion. Barwin and beaulieu have created poetry that is wise, witty, and wry. Filled with translations, responses, remixes, and new takes on Matsuo Basho’s famous frog haiku, frogments from the frag pool exuberantly ripples genre, expectation, and meaning. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Tour de Force Of Visuals & Haiku Based on A Famous Poem
The authors have twisted Basho's Frog Haiku into an outstanding collection of witty puns, permutations, and visual poems. The poems are a great read of the authors' creative playfulness and the visual poems formed by hand drawn letters have a wry sense of humor. It's not a usual haiku collection but one that engages the reader in visual/verbal contemplation. I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Product Description
classic Japanese, tr Corman ... Read more

Product Description
classic Japanese, tr Corman ... Read more