A dozen years ago, I produced a translation of Saijō Yaso’s 1919 poem “Tomino no Jigoku” (“Tomino’s Hell”), motivated in part by its strange afterlife as a bit of creepypasta—an Internet “cursed poem.” At the time, I aimed to bring clarity and coherence to a text that had often been…
Karai Senryū was born in 1718 in Edo. A town official and frequent judge of poetry contests, he was responsible for popularizing a more whimsical or humorous variation of haiku that now bears his name (senryū). Some of his work is darkly ironic, as in this piece. her parents, left…
In 1688, during one of his many journeys throughout Japan, Bashō came to Mount Yamato Katsuragi. Near the Shinto shrine for the local god, Hitokotonushi, the poet composed this haiku. still, what joy I’d feel to find the god’s face amid all these morning blooms —translated by David Bowles, April…
Karai Senryū was born in 1718 in Edo. A town official and frequent judge of poetry contests, he was responsible for popularizing a lighter, more whimsical variation of haiku that now bears his name (senryū). Before his passing at the age of 73, he composed the following jisei or death…
Saiba was a Zen Buddhist monk who wrote this jisei or death haiku as he sensed his end approach in the fall of 1858. He finally died on the night of the harvest moon. So I’ll just scoot my pillow closer to the full autumn moon. —Translated by David Bowles,…
Nozawa Bonchō was born in the city of Kanazawa in Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture. Though he worked most of his life as a doctor in Kyoto, Bonchō never made much money. He became one of Matsuo Bashō’s foremost disciples, which saved him when he was convicted of smuggling: due to his…
On May 20, 1689, a few weeks before the beginning of the three-month time of seclusion Buddhist monks were required to observe each summer, the Japanese poet Bashō climbed into the mountains to visit Urami Falls. Passing behind the cascade, he tarried a while in a cave, looking out at the world…
Japanese poet Bashō composed the following haiku in 1666, apparently after visiting the home of a couple whose young child had died. The sight of their despair reminded him of the nō play Take no Yuki (“Snow on Bamboo”) by the playwright Zeami Motokiyo, in which a young boy dies…
Japanese poet Bashō composed the following haiku in the fall of 1666. An autumn wind blows through the doorway’s yawning maw— cold and cutting voice. —Translated by David Bowles, March 2015
Japanese poet Bashō gave the following haiku to Emoto Tōko, a young merchant who wanted to become the master’s student. Don’t just mirror me as if we were both two halves of the same melon. —Translated by David Bowles, March 2015
