“Bread crumbs”(perhaps how you got here)

(Originally posted September 9th, 2008)

Butterfly asleep
  folded soft on
  temple bell ...
Then bronze gong rang!

This wonderful little poem is by Buson (1715 - 1783), one of the greatest masters of the peculiarly Japanese poetic form, the haiku. On the elaborately sophisticated poetic form, see Haiku at Jane Reichhold's wonderful Web site devoted to poetry in many forms and (as you might expect) the article Haiku - Wikipedia.

But perhaps my point here is not the excellence or humor of Buson's poetry. I know the poem from a little anthology, Japanese Haiku, Mount Vernon, New York, 1956 (Peter Pauper Press). I remember quite well buying the book when I was about fifteen. I was so excited by it that I immediately - well, as soon as I could, given the limitation of funds - bought its three companion volumes of haiku; the four books have survived various misfortunes and remain among my most dearly held treasures.

For the sake of illustration, I give here a scan of the page from which Buson's poem comes.

These four volumes, which meant a great deal to me (and they still do) cost a dollar each. Each book is, despite the low price, beautifully designed and printed, though not expensively so. Regrettably, no credit is given for the translations; I have no idea who did them.

The publisher, Peter Pauper Press, is still in business, and, to judge from its Web pages, still produces attractive books and similar things at reasonable prices. But when I searched, I found no trace of Japanese Haiku or its companion volumes.

Even a search of Amazon.com turned up only a few used copies. The little book is out of print. In today's "ownership society," where "free enterprise" flourishes, we discard whatever doesn't sell, laughing on our way to the bank. And in the process, we trample on beauty.

If you can't make a haiku out of that, you don't deserve to speak your own language.

 All text on this page is the work of J W Durham and is licensed only under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Other licensing terms may be available. E-mail me