Matsuo Basho, from the Narrow Road to the Deep North

Image by Kuniharu Shimizu

Introduction

The purpose of including this work is to help us go beyond the American stereotype of the haiku as a short fortune-cookie verse. Basho admired a style of 15th century Japanese poetry-writing where poets would collaborate to produce a “chain” poem. One poet would write the first 17-syllable verse, called a hokku, and then another would respond, adding on to the chain.

This type of poetry is based on Buddhism’s concept of the impermanence of life. Life is unpredictable and ruptures occur unexpectedly, just as they do in this chain of verse. As each poet responds to the hokku by writing a haiku in the chain, they continue the conversation. Each verse can stand alone or work as part of the poetic chain.

At the time this text was composed, Japanese poets began to write “hokku” which were merely the first stanza of a linked poem that someone else was free to respond to. These were distinguished from the later 19th century verse called “haiku” which were 17-syllable verses that stood alone.

Basho was writing before the modern concept of “haiku” as a verse standing alone existed. When he wrote a hokku, it was usually with the intention of it beginning a chain poem later. His poetry is characterized by the kind of lightheartedness which we still associate with haiku today. Basho’s verses strove to make an observation about Nature or the condition of being human.
Basho’s prose narrative links his hokku as a complete work. Each verse can stand alone, but taken as a whole, we get a sense of “journey” as the pilgrims progress through history, space, and spirituality in search of “the interior,” which in this case means both inner enlightenment, and their various destinations.

Translation and Haiga art by Kuniharu Shimizu

Kunihau Shimizu was born in Tenri, Nara, Japan in 1949, and moved to Hawaii at the age of 15. He returned to Japan in 1972 upon receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Hawaii. He continues to successfully pursue his creative efforts in the arts, which include graphic, editorial, and monument design as well as exhibition planning. In 2000, he started the website project See Haiku Here. This is a worldwide exhibition of Haiga (illustrated haiku) accomplished through the collaborative efforts of over 260 international haijin. He writes haibun which is haiku and prose together, and also short stories, one of which appeared on Red Leaves, a bilingual literary book published in Australia.

See his blog here https:

https://seehaikuhere2.blogspot.com/

English Translation of the Narrow Road to the Deep North Text

Tim Chilcott has maintained a lifetime interest in English Romantic literature, particularly the work of the poet John Clare, about whom he has written extensively, in books, articles, and reviews. His other major interest is literary translation, and his web-site tclt.org.uk, which was created in 2003, currently contains some twenty translations of classics in ,world literature. Three or four translations are added each year. The version of Basho’s Narrow Road to the Far North presented in this e-book first appeared in 2004, and was supplemented by a translation of two hundred haikus by Basho in 2008. All of this material is freely accessible to readers at tclt.org.uk.
Before his retirement from the academic world, Tim Chilcott was Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of Chichester, England. In retirement, he has been able to devote time to continuing interests in music, photography, and gardening.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North