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Poetry of Chiyo-ni: The Life and Art of Japan's Most Celebrated Woman Haiku Master
"Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi are to be deeply thanked for having given us with such articulate care a poetry major in any language and in any place or time." —Robert Creeley, poet
Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), also known as Kaga no Chiyo, is Japan's most celebrated female haiku poet. A disciple of Basho's students, she flourished in an era when haiku was predominantly a male-dominated art form. As a poet, painter, and Buddhist nun, Chiyo-ni lived a vibrant life while composing haiku that embody crystalline clarity and delicate sensuality. This volume brings together over one hundred of her finest seasonal haiku, renku (linked verse), and haibun (travel poems).
Highlights of the collection
morning glory
the well bucket entangled
I ask for water
a hundred gourds
from the heart
of one vine
rouged lips
forgotten—
clear spring water
These luminous, lucid translations immerse the reader in Chiyo-ni's unique vision, offering profound moments of stillness and beauty. Each poem encourages us to pause and reflect on the fleeting moments of our lives. This beautifully illustrated volume also includes artwork by Chiyo-ni and other artists, as well as insightful essays about her life and art, informative notes, and a glossary of haiku-related terms.
A remarkable collection for lovers of Japanese poetry, Chiyo-ni's haiku transcend time and culture, providing a timeless invitation to savor the present moment.
Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), also known as Kaga no Chiyo, is Japan's most celebrated female haiku poet. A disciple of Basho's students, she flourished in an era when haiku was predominantly a male-dominated art form. As a poet, painter, and Buddhist nun, Chiyo-ni lived a vibrant life while composing haiku that embody crystalline clarity and delicate sensuality. This volume brings together over one hundred of her finest seasonal haiku, renku (linked verse), and haibun (travel poems).
Highlights of the collection
morning glory
the well bucket entangled
I ask for water
a hundred gourds
from the heart
of one vine
rouged lips
forgotten—
clear spring water
These luminous, lucid translations immerse the reader in Chiyo-ni's unique vision, offering profound moments of stillness and beauty. Each poem encourages us to pause and reflect on the fleeting moments of our lives. This beautifully illustrated volume also includes artwork by Chiyo-ni and other artists, as well as insightful essays about her life and art, informative notes, and a glossary of haiku-related terms.
A remarkable collection for lovers of Japanese poetry, Chiyo-ni's haiku transcend time and culture, providing a timeless invitation to savor the present moment.
259 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 9, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 10, 2026
An important book as it was the first—and perhaps still the only—of its kind in English, a translation dedicated to a female haiku master. The introductory material provides valuable context for the time in which Chiyo-ni lived, the forms she worked in, and the influence of Zen Buddhism on her art, but it can be repetitive, covering the same ground multiple times, and I wish the biography had stuck closer to things that could be verified and wasn't so gossipy. We know very little about Chiyo-ni's personal life, not even if she was married, and Donegan apparently felt the need to pad her bio with unnecessary—and often melodramatic—speculation.
Chiyo-ni's haiku has, you'll never guess it, a more feminine approach than those of the old male masters, and for this her poetry has been criticized—by men—as not being "as good." But here's yet another example of men needing to shut up and let women work. Chiyo-ni's poetry is different because it's hers, just as Issa's work is different from Bashō's. Chiyo-ni's haiku is often more personal than that of the old male masters, with more people, particularly women, present in them:
woman's desire
deeply rooted–
the wild violets
Bashō would never. Issa might, but he'd add fleas. (Not in a gross way, he just loved bugs!)
Chiyo-ni's haiku is perhaps also more deeply rooted in Zen Buddhism—she was a nun after all—and as a result I found many of them inaccessible to me, as they're mainly interested in expressing Zen principles and feel kind of canned as she repeatedly returns to the same images and phrases. "Cool clear water" is nice once or twice. It is not as nice the fortieth time. It didn't help that the editors were constantly in the footnotes explaining how this was a poem about impermanence or non-duality and praising the deepness of her understanding of such things. It started to make the poetry feel performative, like Chiyo-ni was trying to win some kind of contest, and it didn't offer much to this non-enlightened reader. Like they didn't even bother to explain what non-duality was. But I still found several pieces that were meaningful even without Being The Best At Zen, like this, one of her best-known poems:
a hundred gourds
from the heart
of one vine
And her most famous haiku:
morning glory–
the well-bucket entangled
I ask for water
And this, one of her best known Buddhist haiku, which is supposedly expressing the peace of detachment, but I just love how dismissively breezy it is:
anyway
leave it to the wind—
dry pampas grass
I, too, wish I could leave it all to the wind.
Recommended because it's important to keep Chiyo-ni's name out there, mentioned in the same breath as Bashō, Buson, and Issa, but there's also good poetry in here. Like this haiku, which I absolutely love because the structure suggests that the horsetails were there first and the ruins came later.
つくつくしここらに寺の跡もあり
tsukutsukushi / kokora ni tera no / ato mo ari
among a field
of horsetail weeds–
temple ruins
Or this classic:
falling down laughing
at others falling down—
snow viewing
The poems are presented one per page, with the transliteration first, which is a weird choice, then the English translation, and the Japanese (with furigana) in three staggered vertical columns, read right to left. (Personally, I think either the translation or the actual Japanese should have been offered first, as the transliteration is the least attractive on the page and not particularly meaningful if you don't know Japanese. If you do know Japanese, it's still of limited use.) Footnotes identify the kigo (seasonal word), and many include translation notes, further background, or another poem on a similar subject.
Now for the bad news: I read this in ebook because that was the only way my library had it, and it was not a pleasurable experience. It's listed as an epub in the catalogue, but it sure did act like a PDF. It was an image of the book rather than a text that would flow to fit your screen, and you could only zoom in, not increase the font wholesale. You couldn't highlight text (or search) with any accuracy, and you couldn't highlight at all if you were zoomed in. None of the many end notes were linked. I was pretty mad at this book, not going to lie, and it made my time with Chiyo-ni's poetry kind of frustrating. Definitely get it in print if you're able.
Chiyo-ni's haiku has, you'll never guess it, a more feminine approach than those of the old male masters, and for this her poetry has been criticized—by men—as not being "as good." But here's yet another example of men needing to shut up and let women work. Chiyo-ni's poetry is different because it's hers, just as Issa's work is different from Bashō's. Chiyo-ni's haiku is often more personal than that of the old male masters, with more people, particularly women, present in them:
woman's desire
deeply rooted–
the wild violets
Bashō would never. Issa might, but he'd add fleas. (Not in a gross way, he just loved bugs!)
Chiyo-ni's haiku is perhaps also more deeply rooted in Zen Buddhism—she was a nun after all—and as a result I found many of them inaccessible to me, as they're mainly interested in expressing Zen principles and feel kind of canned as she repeatedly returns to the same images and phrases. "Cool clear water" is nice once or twice. It is not as nice the fortieth time. It didn't help that the editors were constantly in the footnotes explaining how this was a poem about impermanence or non-duality and praising the deepness of her understanding of such things. It started to make the poetry feel performative, like Chiyo-ni was trying to win some kind of contest, and it didn't offer much to this non-enlightened reader. Like they didn't even bother to explain what non-duality was. But I still found several pieces that were meaningful even without Being The Best At Zen, like this, one of her best-known poems:
a hundred gourds
from the heart
of one vine
And her most famous haiku:
morning glory–
the well-bucket entangled
I ask for water
And this, one of her best known Buddhist haiku, which is supposedly expressing the peace of detachment, but I just love how dismissively breezy it is:
anyway
leave it to the wind—
dry pampas grass
I, too, wish I could leave it all to the wind.
Recommended because it's important to keep Chiyo-ni's name out there, mentioned in the same breath as Bashō, Buson, and Issa, but there's also good poetry in here. Like this haiku, which I absolutely love because the structure suggests that the horsetails were there first and the ruins came later.
つくつくしここらに寺の跡もあり
tsukutsukushi / kokora ni tera no / ato mo ari
among a field
of horsetail weeds–
temple ruins
Or this classic:
falling down laughing
at others falling down—
snow viewing
The poems are presented one per page, with the transliteration first, which is a weird choice, then the English translation, and the Japanese (with furigana) in three staggered vertical columns, read right to left. (Personally, I think either the translation or the actual Japanese should have been offered first, as the transliteration is the least attractive on the page and not particularly meaningful if you don't know Japanese. If you do know Japanese, it's still of limited use.) Footnotes identify the kigo (seasonal word), and many include translation notes, further background, or another poem on a similar subject.
Now for the bad news: I read this in ebook because that was the only way my library had it, and it was not a pleasurable experience. It's listed as an epub in the catalogue, but it sure did act like a PDF. It was an image of the book rather than a text that would flow to fit your screen, and you could only zoom in, not increase the font wholesale. You couldn't highlight text (or search) with any accuracy, and you couldn't highlight at all if you were zoomed in. None of the many end notes were linked. I was pretty mad at this book, not going to lie, and it made my time with Chiyo-ni's poetry kind of frustrating. Definitely get it in print if you're able.
November 2, 2025
A beautiful book detailing the life and poetry of Chiyo-ni or Kaga No Chiyo, one of the haiku masters of Japan. Sadly, there has been very little published on her work specifically, in English. This reissue of Patricia Donegan and Yoshei Isibashi's work, is a brilliant contribution and hopefully will make her deservedly better known in the English speaking world.
moonflowers
the beauty
of hidden things
moonflowers
the beauty
of hidden things
December 3, 2025
An excellently translated and well-researched collection. This book includes plenty of in-depth biographic and historical information about Chiyo-ni and her poetry, along with some valuable insights into the cultural climate of eighteenth-century Japan. My one complaint is the print quality of the Kindle edition. It looks like the type was just scanned and converted to an ebook format, making it a bit difficult to read. I would assume that the type in the printed edition is cleaner and easier to read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews