Haiku

This is a double-first for me, as it's not only my first one by Basho, but also my first haiku book in general. Sure, I'd read some haikus here and there, but always on the Internet and never on paper. I finished it in something like 10 minutes, but then returned to it and read some of the poems

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all over again, to better appreciate them. The imagery is just fantastic; there are predominantly themes of nature, but nature almost as an expression of the emotional world of the poet, and the inner dimension of a person in general. The book is quintessentially Japanese, with mentions of mount Fiji, Chuang Tzu, Buddha, sake, samurais and haikus, and many descriptions of beautiful cherry blossoms. I cannot begin to imagine how different these haikus are read in the original. Sadly, Japanese is not a language I speak and, though I particularly dislike any kind of poetry in translation, I had to make do. Luckily, the translation felt very natural and I enjoyed the haikus a great deal - some more than others, of course. I guess a complaint I have is that this collection was way too short, but then what would you expect from a 60page pocket-book?

"Another haiku?
yet more cherry blossoms -
not my face."

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