Basho stands today as Japan's 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, Basho's complete haiku have not been collected
into a single volume. Until now.
To render the writer's 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 poet's 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.
