Friday, April 1, 2022

Cool Announcement: A Freebie, Basho: The Complete Haiku Translated by Jane Reichhold

My Dear Readers:

NeverEnding Story contributor, Jane Reichhold, "dedicated over ten years of work to translating Basho’s works. Dividing Bashō’s creative output into seven periods of development, Reichhold frames each period with a biographical sketch of the poet’s travels and Bashō’s creative influences and personal triumphs and defeats." Now, you can read the entire book, Basho: The Complete Haiku,  Translated with an Introduction, Biography and Notes by Jane Reichhold, in the THF Digital Library. The following are the haiku selected for your reading pleasure


Chapter One: Early Poems: 1662-74

no haiku chosen.


Chapter Two: Basho, The Professional Poet,  1675-79

grass of forgetting
picked for a rice soup
end of the year

a rainy day
the autumn world
of a border town


Chapter Three: Retreat to Nature -- A Religious Life, 1680-83

on a bare branch
a crow settled down
autumn evening

snowy morning
all alone I chew
dried salmon

old pond 
a frog jumps into
the sound of water

New Year’sDay
looking back I am lonely
as an autumn evening

black forest 
whatever you may say 
a morning of snow

                                 
Chapter Four: Basho's Journeys in the Way of the Poet,  1684-88

dew drips drips 
wanting to rinse away
this dust of this world

snow on snow
this night in December
a full moon

grass pillow
a dog also in the cold rain
on a night of voices

the sea darkens
and the duck's voice
is faintly white

drinking wine
more and more sleepless
this snowy night

summer rain
the bucket hoop splits
a night voice

                         to be continued ...

Happy Reading

Chen-ou

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