Fuyo no Hi / Winter Days / Jours d'Hiver
The rain which accompanied my long journey, destroyed my straw hat, the daily storms tore up my clothes. Even though I am fairly close with Mrs Poverty, I feel pitiful to say the least. When I suddenly remembered the great poet who walked these lands a long time ago, writing nonsense poetry, I started to write…
WINTER DAYS illustrates the first renga by Matsuo Bashō in his volume of poetry of the same name. Bashō (1644-1695) is considered the first great poet in the history of haiku, and one of the three great writers of the Golden Age of Osaka (Genroku) together with Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Ihara Saikaku. A classical form of Japanese poetry, renga – or renku – is a longer piece of linked verse poetry composed of verses, usually 36 haikus, written by various poems. Renga is read as a linked sequence of verses, where each next verse refers to the previous one.