Connecting to nature through poetry and prose
We have entered the mini Season of Awakening of Insects. This season is all about animals emerging from hibernation. As a way to honor this season, we will investigate the calls of the spring peeper and wood frog. We will also read some spring haiku by Issa, Buson, and Sookan.
Gazing up into the darkness on a clear winter night, I quickly get lost in my own mind with thoughts about life and the vastness of time. Luckily I have poets like Teasdale, Hughes, Basho, Issa, Buson, and Toshimi to provide me company.
January is typically the coldest time of the year and today we look at the poetry of Helen Hunt Jackson, William Carlos Williams, Basho, Issa, and Shiki as they explore the impact of the winter winds.
Cold midwinter days provided plenty of time for poets like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Matsuo Basho, and Kobayashi Issa to reflect on the snow and ice and our connection to it.
The Heart of Haiku is a short book written by Jane Hirshfield in which she investigates the evolution of Matsuo Basho’s writing and poetry. Using Basho’s own words and haiku, Hirschfield demonstrates Basho's impact on the poetic world.
In the winter woods the sound of a woodpecker resonates through the trees. This drumming or tapping behavior of the woodpeckers makes these birds both noticeable and unique. As a result there are many poems written about them. Today we have poems by Dickinson, Alling, Basho, Issa, and Silverstein.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is Basho’s third book documenting his travels in Japan, and it is considered one of the major Japanese texts from the Edo period. This book, written in haibun, demonstrates Basho’s mastery of this form. Yuasa states that the “prose and haiku illuminate each other like two mirrors held up facing each other.”
Basho's poem about the moon glow and the drifting clouds makes me think about the Buddhist teaching of the Two Truths. However, I wanted to know what other people thought. So I asked and what I learned was pretty fascinating.
The Chrysanthemum has found its way into the poetry of ancient China, Japan, and 1900s England. Here is a collection of poems and haikus that highlight this flower.
When the Japanese adapted the Chinese 24 season calendar into 72 seasons they created a series of micro-seasons. Each one of these micro-seasons lasts five or six days. Today, we are in the micro-season of “The Chrysanthemum Flowers”. This is also the time of the Chongyang Festival.
The mini season of White Dew runs from September 7 until September 21. To honor this season we have collected several seasonal haiku by the early masters.
In the twilight rain/these brilliant-hued hibiscus/A lovely sunset/--Basho. What role does the symbolism of the hibiscus play in this haiku?
SeasonWords.com 