Description
A brilliant book. These clear-water poems and their accompanying insightful commentaries enlighten both scholar and poet. Reading them, I am transported back across centuries to repeatedly savor the hokku's capacity to capture and illuminate the ongoing and inevitable fusion of our lives with the natural world. -- Penny Harter, coauthor of The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku A tour de force. Because they were often written for social occasions, many hokku disappeared like 'blossoms on the wind.' To communicate each poem to its fullest, Carter names the season and provides a short commentary on its poetic and cultural allusions. Enjoy these blossoms that have been gathered in this landmark collection. -- Margaret Chula, president, Tanka Society of America Haiku Before Haiku brings to the English-speaking audience for the first time selected seventeen-syllable haiku composed by medieval renga poets prior to the appearance of the famed haikai master Matsuo Basho in the late seventeenth century. Steven D. Carter, a noted translator and scholar, has rendered these haiku into English in a way that captures their original power. The introduction and notes allow the reader to grasp the complexity of these short but highly evocative poems. -- Haruo Shirane, Columbia University
About the Author
Steven D. Carter is Yamato Ichihashi Chair in Japanese History and Civilization at Stanford University. His numerous books include Just Living: Poems by the Medieval Monk Tonna and Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shotetsu.
Reviews
offers readers a chance to explore the evolution of this form. Inquiring Minds An erudite, beautifully translated, and accessible source on this form of Japanese poetry that deserves more attention from Anglophone readers. -- Cheryl Crowley Journal of Japanese Studies
Book Information
ISBN 9780231156479
Author Steven D. Carter
Format Paperback
Page Count 176
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press