A couple of days ago I completed an odyssey that began for me around this time last year: I finished reading Bashō: The Complete Haiku. Translator Jane Reichhold has done a wonderful job with the 1012 haiku collected here, as well as with her introduction describing the nature and impact of Bashō’s work, her more biographical introductions to the seven “chapters” of Bashō’s life and practice, and her illuminating notes, which offer commentary, literal translations, Romanized versions, and the original Japanese texts.Read More