Poet: Matsuo Basho - All poems of Matsuo Basho

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Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694 / Iga Province / Japan)

42 poems of Matsuo Basho
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Bashō was born Matsuo Kinsaku around 1644, somewhere near Ueno in Iga Province. His father may have been a low-ranking samurai, which would have promised Bashō a career in the military but not much chance of a notable life. It was traditionally claimed by biographers that he worked in the kitchens. However, as a child Bashō became a servant to Tōdō Yoshitada, who shared with Bashō a love for haikai no renga, a form of cooperative poetry composition. The sequences were opened with a verse in the 5-7-5 mora format; this verse was named a hokku, and would later be renamed haiku when presented as stand-alone works. The hokku would be followed by a related 7-7 addition by another poet. Both Bashō and Yoshitada gave themselves haigō, or haikai pen names; Bashō's was Sōbō, which was simply the on'yomi reading of his samurai name of Matsuo Munefusa. In 1662 the first extant poem by Bashō was published; in 1664 two of his hokku were printed in a compilation, and in 1665 Bashō and Yoshitada composed a one-hundred-verse renku with some acquaintances. more >>

Popular Poems

	A Ball of Snow
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Quotations | more quotations >>

''Refinement's origin:
the remote north country's
rice-planting song.''

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), Japanese poet. (untitled haiku), Trans. by Bernard Lionel Einbond, in Cicada I, No. 4 (Winter 1977).

''Clouds now and again
give a soul some respite from
moon-gazing—behold.''

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), Japanese poet. (untitled haiku), Trans. by Bernard Lionel Einbond, in Cicada I, No. 4 (Winter 1977).

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Judy Meibach (4/30/2010 9:26:00 AM)

I never quite understood haiku until I started reading the works of Basho - now I am studying haiku - and it is quite enlightening - something very different than the poetry that I have often been accustomed to.

Lorraine Margueritte Gasrel Black (11/16/2008 3:19:00 PM)

How much can be said in so little words.I'm glad I finally discovered who wrote and invented the haiku.Thank you.I wrote some haiku based on THE OLD POND haiku-which is this poet's most famous.

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