Deborah Bogen: Bashō

What saves you? I mean, what undoes your anguish and despair, despite the rain, the broken pipes, the broken people. Poetry’s my holy. Some days every word I write is like a light that works.

Sweet friend, hear me. There will always be trouble. And fear, like a tapeworm, may uncoil inside any day. But right now, the girl with hazel eyes is strumming her guitar, so let’s not summon sorrow or traffic in panic and grief. Let’s follow Basho’s bee — as he stumbles out of the peony.

Deborah Bogen’s books include In Case of Sudden Free Fall (Jacar, 2018).

Copyright 2021 Deborah Bogen

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Matsuo Bashō (1644 – 1694) was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. He is recognized as the greatest master of haiku and renku forms. Matsuo Bashō’s poetry is internationally renowned, and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and traditional sites.