Soseki Natsume's Collected Haiku: 1,000 Verses from Japan's Most Popular Writer

by Natsume Sōseki, Erik Lofgren (translator)

1,000 haiku by Soseki Natsume, collected into one volume for the first time!

Soseki Natsume is Japan's most popular writer, well known in the West for his satirical novels like I Am a Cat, Botchan and Kokoro. However, he first made a name for himself in Japan as a poet, publishing hundreds of haiku over a period of several decades. Until now very few of these have appeared in English.

Soseki Natsume's Collected Haiku presents 1,000 of the author's most famous verses, selected and translated by Erik Lofgren, a leading Soseki expert. The poems are grouped into chapters corresponding to the five traditional Japanese seasons (New Year, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter).

In these poems, Soseki explores themes ranging from wabi sabi Zen simplicity to his personal experiences including several years studying in England. His verses are evocative of the splendor of the natural world, the power of human emotions, and the serenity found in living a peaceful life.

Each poem is presented in the original Japanese with a Romanized version and English translation. Audio recordings of the English and Japanese versions are provided online.

Genres: Poetry, Japan

312 pages, Hardcover

Published April 15, 2025

About the author

Natsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石), born Natsume Kinnosuke (夏目 金之助), was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1000 yen note. In Japan, he is often considered the greatest writer in modern Japanese history. He has had a profound effect on almost all important Japanese writers since.

Reviews

[Mark Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m torn. I appreciated this look at Soseki’s poetic mind but feel like — as Lofgren notes — that too many of these haiku are throwaways (but isn’t that the point?). Kusamakura is a top-tier novel for me, so I was excited for more, and there are moments of brilliance, witticisms and scatalogical humor throughout.

There are also numerous typographical errors (I’ve thought about emailing Lofgren to find out what “A Obama with an eye toward spring” was actually meant to refer to). the book’s formatting is maddening (how many poems fall under a certain header or topic? And why do I have to power through 40 of 105 haiku on plum blossoms in a row?), and there is a lack of context when I feel it’s needed most.

But it’s hard not to appreciate the effort here, as well as the English and Japanese readings available here:
https://www.tuttlepublishing.com/sose...

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Natsume Soseki is widely considered one of 2oth century Japan's greatest writers. While he is best known for his novels, such as Kokoro and I Am a Cat, Soseki wrote broadly, including the one-thousand haiku collected in this volume.

The collection, as is common among haiku volumes, is organized seasonally. Season words being a common feature of classical haiku. That said, these poems are not all classical haiku (though most are.) With respect to form, they are all haiku, but - with respect to content - some are senryū (a style that is the same as haiku in form, but uses more humor and humanistic elements and is less strictly natural and imagist) and others are more idiosyncratic experiments.

One excellent feature of this collection is that it includes both the Japanese characters and Romanized phoneticizations for each poem. This is great for readers who know some level of Japanese, but having the pronunciations allows readers to take in the sound quality of the original -- even if they don't read Japanese.

The translations are optimized for readability by English readers. By this I mean that the translator, Erik Lofgren, doesn't pare the lines down to maximize sparseness of sound. There are different strategies for translation, and I think Lofgren's approach is best for a general readership because the translations don't draw attention to themselves by reading in a fashion that is clunky or tone deaf in English. That said, I suspect some readers would prefer translations more stripped of articles, conjunctions, and other function words.

If you enjoy haiku and modern Japanese literature, I'd highly recommend this book.

[Periplus Bookshop]

Soseki Natsume’s Collected Haiku menghadirkan 1.000 haiku karya Soseki Natsume, salah satu penulis paling terkenal di Jepang, yang pertama kali dikenal sebagai penyair sebelum menjadi novelis legendaris. Buku ini mengumpulkan puisi-puisi terbaiknya, dibagi dalam lima musim tradisional Jepang: Tahun Baru, Musim Semi, Musim Panas, Musim Gugur, dan Musim Dingin. Haiku-haiku ini menggambarkan keindahan alam, kesederhanaan Zen, serta pengalaman pribadi Soseki, termasuk tahun-tahun yang ia habiskan di Inggris. Disajikan dalam format bilingual (Jepang, Romaji, dan Inggris) dengan rekaman audio daring, buku ini adalah jendela unik menuju dunia haiku klasik Jepang. https://blog.periplus.com/2025/02/23/...