Matsuo Basho is the earliest and most revered of the great haiku masters. His impact on the form remains unmatched as his thinking continues to influence artists, philosophers, and students of aesthetics.

Suffering from depression and a persistent sense of loneliness, Basho’s work embodies wabi-sabi. While difficult to articulate, wabi-sabi, for Basho, concerns the pursuit of simplicity - “lightness” - and the beauty of loneliness, “akin to, but deeper than, nostalgia.”

Poems of Matsuo Basho is a short and varied collection of Basho’s haiku. Each translation is accompanied by the original Japanese text and English transliteration (romaji).

Author: Matsuo Basho
Translator: Anthony Opal
Language: Japanese / English
ISBN: 978-1-7356630-5-0
Published: September 18, 2020