Mindful Writing Challenge January 2013 and Celebrating Issa, the classic haikai poet

Mindful Writing Challenge January 2013 has started, and I wanted to remember Issa who was so mindful about the aspects of wildlife many of us despise including all kinds of biting insects.

My tribute haiku to him though is about the famous haikai verse about the impermanence and transient aspects of life he called the world of dew, which also related to the tragic deaths of members of his family, including children.

tonight's world of dew
if a moment Issa's shade
would walk beside me
 
memorial haiku by Alan Summers



About Issa: http://haikuguy.com/issa/aboutissa.html
Issa Day: http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/2013/01/05/its-issa-day/

Although Issa Day is actually every November 19th in Japan, some celebrate today as well.

Here's an extra treat about Issa, including a wood carving of Issa, and a video by Robert Hass:
http://www.gwarlingo.com/2012/the-sunday-poem-kobayashi-issa-translated-and-read-by-robert-hass/


Issa Memorial Museum: http://en.kobayashi-issa.jp/










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Matsuo Basho's Summer Grasses

I found this hanging up on a wall in a Japanese cafe:

The summer grass -
'Tis all that's left
Of ancient warriors' dreams.

Inazo Nitobe

No mention of Basho as the author of the original Japanese poem on the poster, or that this is a translation.

When I Googled, I found that Inazo Nitobe, the famous Bushido author, did translate this, and the poster simply leaves off Basho's name as the original author.

Cache:
Daily Yomiuri, Early summer rain falls, temple of light shine

Japanese Reference Site:
Summer Grasses & Samurai Glossary

"Perhaps Bashō wanted to emphasize natural growth as a force of solace and renewal – seeing the summer grasses at Hiraizumi as a reason for hope as well as melancholy; hence “deep” would perhaps seem too dark and brooding a word."
A Dream of Ruined Walls by Paul Rouzer, University of Minnesota
http://simplyhaiku.com/SHv4n2/features/Rouzer.html

I personally visited the area which Basho wrote about in his Summer Grasses haiku, but alas there was no marker to the famous haiku & battle.


夏草や兵どもが夢の跡

Summer grasses,
All that remains
Of soldiers’ dreams

ON LOVE AND BARLEY, HAIKU OF BASHO Matsuo Basho - Author, Lucien Stryk - Translator

The romanised version (romaji):

Natsukusa ya
Tsuwamonodomo ga
Yume no ato

Transliteration:

natsu-gusa ya / tsuwamono-domo-ga / yume no ato

summer grasses (:!) / strong ones’ / dreams’ site 

(romanised version with literal English-language translation)


these summer grasses: 
the remains of warriors 
with their dreams

(English-language translation version by Alan Summers)

Basho http://www.uoregon.edu/~kohl/basho/life.html 

I feel the verses of Basho’s time can often carry a power beyond their original intention. Matsuo Bashō did what a lot of poets would want to do, and that's to visit important places, including temples and shrines, and old battle scenes. I’ve been to the battle scene this haikai verse refers, and it was still overgrown with grasses, but years later it may now be developed. The poem has often been adopted, although it was not its intention, as an anti-war or certainly not pro-war haiku.

The "warrior's dream" verse can refer to the Fujiwara clan and the samurai soldier/warrior Yoshitsune: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamoto_no_Yoshitsune#Rumors_and_legend 

In Romanised Japanese (created for English-speaking peoples mostly):

natsukusa ya tsuwamano-domo ga yume no ato

"Tsuwamono (兵) - An old term for a soldier popularized by Matsuo Basho in his famous haiku. Literally meaning a strong person."

http://www.jref.com/glossary/samurai.shtml

Ato can mean “site”; ”ruin," "trace" “track” or “aftermath.”

Yume can mean: "dream," "ambition," or “glory.”

'tsuwamonodomo' is the plural for warriors, so Basho can mean both all the soldiers involved in a specific battle as well as just one major warrior.

Summer grasses:

http://area17.blogspot.com/2006/04/bashos-summer-grasses.html

In actual Japanese, the haikai verse, to a Japanese haikai reader of the time, contains an incredible amount of information because the reader could fill in the gaps. 

In contemporary society (both Japan and the rest of the world) we might have to carefully juggle what readers might not know. But then again, with internet access, we need take only 2-3 seconds to learn something nowadays!

Do consider visiting this blog page:

The Tragedy of Hiraizumi

https://donnykimball.com/hiraizumi-420c4d695e44

Another Summer grasses haiku, and powerful in its context of the dawning of the industrial age in Japan is:

summer grasses—
the wheels of the locomotive
come to a stop

YAMAGUCHI Seishi (1901 - 1994)
translated by Takashi Kodaira and Alfred H. Marks

The Essence of Modern Haiku - haiku by Yamaguchi Seishi
http://www.worldcat.org/title/essence-of-modern-haiku-300-poems/oclc/28530343
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0963433539/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=


A Sample Page of The Essence of Modern Haiku including notes plus Japanese characters and romaji: