The Essential Bashō by Matsuo Bashō translated by Sam H amill 3+ stars

[Karin]

Only 3 stars because it's not all Haiku and I didn't find the travel stuff as interesting as I would have liked. Plus it's a lot of translated haiku that I suspect is better in the original Japanese, although some of it was brilliant even in English. Also, I don't generally read volumes of poetry despite having written a plethora of free verse in my teens and early university years (most of it foolishly tossed. Sure, some was drivel, naturally, but when my parents sent me a box of stuff, some of it wasn't so I'm glad to have those few back.)

In any event, here are a couple I loved PLUS one that made me think of my niece and of course she loved hearing it.

Two of the ones I loved even in English:

Winter peonies--
we'll call these plovers in snow
our winter cuckoos

"Remembrance fern"
withers--I bought fresh rice cakes
at the old hotel

All the cherry blossom ones reminded me of my niece, but this is the one I told her over the phone:

If my voice was good,
I'd sing a song of cherry
blossoms falling

Because her teacher helped her write a song she started and the refrain is about cherry blossoms falling, etc (it has depth to it). She lives in Vancouver which is rife with Japanese cherry trees and there is even a Cherry Blossom Festival. Here's a photo of some Vancouver specimens, so you can see why the blossoms are one of the things Basho wrote of so often in the spring:

[Holly R W]

I enjoyed your review, Karin, and especially the picture of the blooming cherry trees. It's the first snowy, bitter cold day here in Cleveland and seeing the cherry trees is a mood lifter.

[Karin]

Holly R W wrote: "I enjoyed your review, Karin, and especially the picture of the blooming cherry trees. It's the first snowy, bitter cold day here in Cleveland and seeing the cherry trees is a mood lifter."

I'm glad you liked it--I miss seeing all of those, but not all of the rain Vancouver gets!