Today in Japan, Nov 28 ~ Death of the Haiku Poet

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And here is your daily almanac for Monday the twenty-eighty of November 2022.

Today, in 1694, Bashō died. He is usually considered the greatest haiku poet.

That makes today Bashō Memorial Day (basho-ki, 芭蕉忌). Besides the name of the day, it is also a season word for early winter. There are actually a few different names for the day. One of the others is Green Peach Day (tōsei ki, 桃青忌). Tōsei (green peach) was his pen name before he choose the name Bashō. It refers to his favorite Chinese Poet, Li Bai (李白, Plum White).

Towards the end of his life his fame grew and he was constantly visited. He was greatly disturbed by this, complaining that he had no peace of mind. He shut the doors to his house for a month, during which time he developed his final haiku philosophy, that of karumi.

Shortly after this, he left on his final walking trip, in 1694, leaving his home in Edo and traveling towards Osaka. He fell sick on his journey and died surrounded by his students in Osaka. Towards the end he scolded himself for being so obsessed with poetry, yet he still wrote his death poem and also edited several of his others.

His final poem:

旅に病んで夢は枯野をかけ廻る
tabi ni yande yume wa kareno o kake meguru

ill on a journey
my dreams wander over
withered fields

He was 51.

Today is Senbu (先負), one of the rokuyō, the Buddhist horoscope. Today features bad luck in the morning and good luck in the afternoon. (Read more about the rokuyō here)

On the old calendar, today would have been the fifth day of the eleventh month. It is Rainbows Hide (niji kakurete miezu), the first microseason of Shōsetsu, so named because it was thought that rainbows are the result of a balanced amount of yin and yang; winter is dominated by yin with very little yang and therefore rainbows couldn't form. This is the time of the first snowfalls.

Here's a haiku from Issa, written on another Bashō Memorial Day many years ago:

ばせを忌やことしもまめで旅虱
bashōki ya kotoshi mo mame de tabi-jirami

bashō memorial day—
another year with good health
my journey's lice

Issa makes light of everything, even Bashō day. A slightly more serious one, from Shiki:

芭蕉忌や我俳諧の奈良茶飯
bashōki ya waga haikai no nara chameshi

bashō memorial day—
at our haikai meeting
nara rice gruel

Nara rice gruel was one of Bashō's favorites. Seems like Shiki's haiku group was eating it in his honor.

Have a good day, y'all!




Hi there! David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.

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    (Edited)

    It is so interesting for me to know that Bashō's previous pen name is Green Peach. Yeah, apparently it really contrasts with Plum White.
    However, for Chinese people, 李白/Li Bai only means that the poet's surname is 李/Li and his first name is 白/bai.

    李/Li is the most popular surname in China, being called together with 王/Wang, 张/Zhang and 刘/Liu as the China's four biggest family names.

    Here I have a question about Issa's Haiku. How should I understand "my journey's lice"?My journey is full of lice?

    Thank you for sharing the great story and Haiku about "Bashō Memorial Day" so much.

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    I think for most Japanese people Li Bai (pronounced as ri haku in Japanese) is just a name as well. So I think few people would understand that Tōsei was a reference to Li Bai. To most people it was just a silly, perhaps self-depreciating name, the kind that haiku poets often picked.

    I think Issa was playfully poking at himself, as usual. Another year of good health, and another with his head lice. His lice were making the life journey with him as constant companions.

    Thanks for reading!

    !PIZZA

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    I often think Haiku masters were very honest abut themselves. I really respect that they wrote about their lives (love, sickness, money, nature and more…) this much.

    By the way, I never asked you “How you entered haiku world or How haiku world invited you to join it?”

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    That's a great question. And.... I don't think I know clearly. Let me think... Hmm... I remember 20 years ago when I came to Japan. One of my gaijin friends decided he wanted to make a Twitter account just to tweet his own haiku. I had never really thought much about haiku, but I joined in the fun. I liked Japanese classical literature, but poetry wasn't really my thing. But I joined with my friend and started tweeting out haiku as well.

    From writing my own silly ones to tweet out, I slowly started to read more about haiku. From there I got sucked into reading haiku from the old masters. I started reading them directly in Japanese. I met some Japanese haiku teachers here. Read more, learned more. Bought a saijiki. Bought way too many haiku books. Found the haiku section at the library. And it just kind of spiraled from there.

    Hmm... I think that might be it. I haven't thought of that in a long time, so my memory might not be accurate.

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    Thank your for sharing your story! Wow. Your haiku journey sounds very interesting. I like to hear people’s “道” story because there is a deep story in it.

    Do you have Saijiki? Cool. Japanese students have a chance to learn haiku at school and most of students enjoy learning it I guess. Unfortunately, we stopped learning after finishing school life as you know but people still enjoy haiku through their daily lives. I automatically count 5.7.5 sometimes hahaha! I think it’s people’s “Aruaru”behavior in Japan. I like salaryman senryu as well.

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    I think to some degree Japanese language naturally flows in groups of 5 and 7, that's one of the reasons this form of poetry developed. Just like English naturally flows into weak-strong patterns of 5 (iambic pentameter, like in Shakespeare verse). It's interesting how every language has their own style of poetry.

    Senryu can be fun. I enjoy reading them in the paper when I get a newspaper. They sometimes remind me of dad jokes (oyaji gag) because they can be silly but funny.

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