Matsuo Basho – The Traveling Poet

“An old pond

A jumping frog:

the sound of water”

– Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694)

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If you have delved even a little into Japanese poetry, it is very likely that you know this poem written by Matsuo Bashō 松尾芭蕉considered by many as ” The poet of Japan “

In his time, at the end of the 17th century, Basho was already recognized as one of the best poets of his time. On his pilgrimages, aspiring poets followed him wherever he went and people invited him to their home to give him a place to eat and rest from his long walks through the villages. It is thanks to these people that much is known about Basho’s life and what his day-to-day life was like.

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Poetry gradually became his life as he worked on preparing anthologies of the works of other writers and his personal reputation as a poet of haikai , the poetic form predecessor of haiku , grew in Kyoto and later in Edo, when he moved to the capital. He had many friends and disciples who helped him in his daily life, for example, on one occasion they rebuilt his hut since it had fallen prey to a fire in the city. He worked together with other poets quite frequently, which made him become a prominent member of this community.

Matsuo Basho was a man of travel as he made several long pilgrimages at a time when walking was the most common means of travel and there were all kinds of dangers along the way. Sometimes he spent a year or more away from home and was almost always accompanied by students or local people who welcomed him into their homes. Basho liked to go places and see everything in detail: famous scenic views in the right season like cherry blossoms or the full moon, temples, historical sites, and wherever he went. He wrote haiku and renga on the spot or just before he went to sleep.

He became a deeply religious man committing himself to Zen principles and the older he grew, the more he intended his poetry to serve the spiritual quest. Following the Zen philosophy , Bashō tried to compress the meaning and the search for harmony with the natural world in a pattern as simple as the haiku (poems of only three lines of 5 and 7 syllables without the need to rhyme)

His key work in this development is “Paths of Oku” (Oku no Hosomichi ), written during one of his trips to northern Japan and where Basho relates that the trip he is making is both interior and exterior, a search for the soul and for spiritual truths. The trips, despite their length, were always in places known to him or others, although they were intended to be explorations.

The last recorded poem or haiku was compiled by one of the disciples around 1694 and is generally accepted as his farewell poem or “last words” of the poet:

“Sick on my journey

my dreams will wander

this desolate field

– Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694)