Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson by Yosa Buson and translated by W.S. Merwin, Takako Lento

This is poetry from Japan.

Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson by Yosa Buson translated by W.S. Merwin, Takako Lento is published by Copper Canyon Press. This is a Collected originally written in Japanese. This was published in 2013.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781556594267E12.

Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson, translated from the Japanese by W.S. Merwin, Takako Lento, brings Yosa Buson’s Japanese-language work into English through Copper Canyon Press. Published in 2013, it is best approached as collected poems of encounter rather than as a book to solve. Buson’s collected haiku give the reader a tradition of radical brevity, where season, perception, and painterly exactness carry more than explanation could. Biography and context may deepen the experience, but they do not need to stand in the doorway. Let the poem arrive first, then let the questions follow. Translation here becomes less a matter of loss than of new access: a voice from Japan finding another set of nerves in English.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.