Basho: The Complete Haiku »

JANE REICHHOLD is one of the top poets in the American haiku world. She has written over twenty books, most of them on haiku or poetry, including Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on Guide. Three of her books have received awards from the Haiku Society of America, and she has twice won the Literature Award from the Museum of Haiku in Tokyo.

SHIRO TSUJIMURA is a renowned Japanese artist and potter with works in museums around the world. His striking work appears on the cover and throughout the Kodansha International edition of Bashos classic, A Haiku Journey.

Basho stands today as Japans most renowned writer, and one of the most revered. Wherever Japanese literature, poetry or Zen are studied, his oeuvre carries weight. Every new student of haiku quickly learns that Basho was the greatest of the Old Japanese Masters.

Yet despite his stature, Bashos complete haiku have not been collected into a single volume. Until now.

To render the writers full body of work into English, Jane Reichhold, an American haiku poet and translator, dedicated over ten years of work. In Basho: The Complete Haiku, she accomplishes the feat with distinction. Dividing his creative output into seven periods of development, Reichhold frames each period with a decisive biographical sketch of the poets travels, creative influences and personal triumphs and defeats. Scrupulously annotated notes accompany each poem; and a glossary and two indexes fill out the volume.

Reichhold notes that, Basho was a genius with words. He obsessively sought out the right word for each phrase of the succinct seventeen-syllable haiku, seeking the very essence of experience and expression. With equal dedication, Reichhold sought the ideal translations. As a result, Basho: The Complete Haiku is likely to become the essential work on this brilliant poet and will stand as the most authoritative book on the subject for many years to come. Original sumi-e ink drawings by artist Shiro Tsujimura complement the haiku throughout the book.

Introduction 7

Ch. 1 Early Poems 1662-74 19

Ch. 2 Basho the Professional Poet 1675-79 33

Ch. 3 A Retreat to Nature - A Religious Life 1680-83 47

Ch. 4 Basho's Journeys in the Way of the Poet 1684-88 67

Ch. 5 Basho's Journey to the Interior 1689 127

Ch. 6 At the Peak and Still Traveling 1690-91 155

Ch. 7 Basho Finds the Secret of Greatness in Poetry and Life 1692-94 185

Notes: Commentary, literal translations, Romanized versions, and original Japanese 233

App. 1 Haiku Techniques 397

App. 2 Selected Chronology of the Life of Matsuo Basho 409

Glossary of Literary Terms 411

Bibliography 421

Index of First Lines 423