Hori Bakusui

Hori Bakusui 堀麦水 (1718-1783) was a major Japanese poet of the Matsuo Bashō revival, writing traditional style haiku poems.[1]

Biography

Little is known of Bakusui's life apart from his poems. He came from Kanazawa in the middle Edo period, and studied under Otsuyu.[2] He is considered romantic by temperament, and he attempted to revive the early style of the classical Haiku poet Matsuo Bashō from the book Minashiguri. in 1770 he wrote a book of laconic comments on Bashō's hokku, called Jōkyō shōfū kukai densho (Orthodox style of the Jōkyō era: Verses with critical commentary).[3]

Haiku

One of Bakusui's poems, on the popular haiku theme of the dragonfly, runs:

Dyeing his body
autumn—
the dragonfly.
—Bakusui[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Crowley, Cheryl. "Collaboration in the 'Back to Bashō' Movement: The Susuki Mitsu Sequence of Buson's Yahantei School," Early Modern Japan, Fall 2003, page 5.
  2. ↑ Addiss, Stephen (2009). Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems. Shambhala Publications. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8348-2234-4.
  3. ↑ Ueda, Makoto (1995). Bashō and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku with Commentary. Stanford University Press. p. 418. ISBN 978-0-8047-2526-2.
  4. ↑ Addiss, Stephen (2009). Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems. Shambhala Publications. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-8348-2234-4.