Matsuo Basho
Matsuo Basho
Matsuo Bashō, born 松尾 金作, then Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa, was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest master of haiku. Matsuo Bashō's poetry is internationally renowned; and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and traditional sites. Although Bashō is justifiably famous in the West for his...
NationalityJapanese
ProfessionPoet
CountryJapan
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
Spring rain conveyed under the trees in drops.
Fresh spring! / The world is only Nine days old - / These fields and mountains!
Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps' nest.
What is important is to keep our mind high in the world of true understanding, and returning to the world of our daily experience to seek therein the truth of beauty. No matter what we may be doing at a given moment, we must not forget that is has a bearing upon our everlasting self which is poetry.
The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.
A flute with no holes is not a flute.
Even in Kyoto/Hearing the cuckoo's cry/I long for Kyoto
Winter garden, the moon thinned to a thread, insects singing.
Winter solitude- in a world of one colour the sound of the wind.
With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.
I hope to have gathered To repay your kindness The willow leaves Scattered in the garden.
Traveler's heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire.
Old pond, leap-splash - a frog.