Moon Woke Me Up Nine Times: Selected Haiku of Basho

By Matsuo Basho and David Young

Vivid new translations of Basho's popular haiku, in a selected format ideal for newcomers as well as fans long familiar with the Japanese master.

Basho, the famously bohemian traveler through seventeenth-century Japan, is a poet attuned to the natural world as well as humble human doings; "Piles of quilts/ snow on distant mountains/ I watch both," he writes. His work captures both the profound loneliness of one observing mind and the broad-ranging joy he finds in our connections to the larger community. David Young, acclaimed translator and Knopf poet, writes in his introduction to this selection, "This poet's consciousness affiliates itself with crickets, islands, monkeys, snowfalls, moonscapes, flowers, trees, and ceremonies...Waking and sleeping, alone and in company, he moves through the world, delighting in its details." Young's translations are bright, alert, musically perfect, and rich in tenderness toward their maker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9780307962010

Book preview

Introduction

The seasons wheel past, majestic, troubling, and reassuring. Their procession signals constant change and a transient existence, but their repetition provides a sense of stability. Basho’s world is a world of hardship and poverty, but even life’s privations and disasters can disclose delights that enlarge his awareness, his enjoyment of being-in-the-world.

By allowing his participation in the beauty and variety of its particulars, large or small, the earth on which Basho lives permits him to transcend his own ego:

Crawl out

from under the shed

toad-croak

It is summer on the farm, in this case, and the simple delight of encountering a different creature is, for this poet, sufficient occasion for a poem. The toad is also allowed his voice; his is the music of the poem, in effect, echoing the poet’s greeting. They share a moment of identification and identity.

Sometimes the visual effect is more imposing:

A line of egrets

making a bridge

between two snowy peaks

Much of the pleasure here derives from the play of scale, contrasting the size of the mountains with the delicate dimensions of the birds, along with the white-on-white color scheme.

This poet’s consciousness affiliates itself with crickets, islands, monkeys, snowfalls, moonscapes, flowers, trees, and ceremonies. He shares his writing with other poets and is known as an inspiring teacher. When he isn’t socializing with writers, he can socialize with the world around and beyond the self. From a communal activity, renga, where a group of writers collaborate on a series of linked verses, he takes the seventeen-syllable unit used to introduce (and be interspersed among) such verses and makes it into his own instrument of meditation and discovery.

Reviews for Moon Woke Me Up Nine Times

[dmmjlllt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shelby Foote completely satisfied my appetite for books about the ACW for a decade or so, but it looks like I'm reading this stuff again.

This is very well-written, although it gets a little purple near the end. Very thorough on the Battle of Antietam, and good on McClellan as well.

A very positive reference to Sandburg's Lincoln biography has made me decide to revisit that.

[5hrdrive · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After ignoring the Shenandoah Valley and giving a a very short synopsis of the Peninsula Campaign, Catton proceeds to skip over Second Bull Run and Cedar Mountain to get to the heart of the book, Antietam. From here on out the storytelling is terrific and I enjoyed it very much. Still, to attempt to tell the story of the Civil War while ignoring it's most important theater where the war was actually won is curious and misleading.

[larryerick · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The rating for this book really doesn't reflect the degree to which I enjoyed reading it. I've read a lot of American Civil War related books and this definitely has something to offer interested readers, but it is also the most unevenly written book I have encountered. The author is particularly skilled -- outstanding even -- at presenting narrative vignettes surrounding historical events, such as battles. Unlike, Stephen Ambrose, for instance, whose work I have read, seemed like a middle schooler during a book report rushing through index cards he had pieced together of bits and pieces of information he had come upon, this author comes close at times to getting his vignette gems to nearly outshine the major events to which they are attached. He's like the best campfire story teller ever in that regard. He falters somewhat when he starts to get philosophical about events and personalities, not always justifying his positions or stating them clearly. In many regards, he is the ultimate Civil War history buff. Extremely well versed (much of this book assumes a certain level of prior knowledge by the reader on the subjects he discusses), he has positions to take, but I don't think he reaches the level of academician in all he proposes. Most odd about the book is the way the author jumps around and about several early battles, Bull Run, Ball's Bluff, the Seven Days, Second Bull Run, without ever going into much, if any, depth, and then, almost out of nowhere, he dives head first into the battle of Antietam, oozing with detail. What made the other battles so insignificant to not deserve more detail? Finally, it should be said that the books title is inappropriate. Very little is discussed about how the Army of the Potomac is "Mr. Lincoln's Army", not to mention the fact that there were multiple Union armies for which Lincoln was Commander in Chief, while this book is all about General McClellan's army, and that's what it should have been called.

[tommyelf_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Let me be open, clear and honest here at the start - I am not a Civil War buff whatsoever. My knowledge of the Civil War comes from the old, musty lectures of History teachers in my Junior High School and High School classes - along with a single US History class early in my collegiate career. My knowledge of the Civil War is essentially truncated neatly into an relatively small understanding of why, names of primary individuals of interest, and the dates/locations of major military engagements.

This particular book that I have had in my hands for about a half a month, comes from my father. My father IS a Civil War buff. My father DOES understand much more about the Civil War then the surface edge that I comprehend. This particular book, and the other two books of "The Army Of The Potomac" series by Catton, were purchased by my father around the time I was born (1965) during the centennial celebration of this particular time frame of American history. I have inherited these books - along with several other Civil War books - from my father in this past year. I have looked at these books on his bookshelves in many places of residence (we were a military family - USAF - and moved quite a bit), but have never gotten the urge to pick them up to read. My forte' is Roman History, and have a couple of bookshelves cluttered with this particular topic. I was produ to obtain my father's Civil War collection, add it to my own, and now pick it up to read.

Mr. Cattons' reputation as a very skilled writer whose evocative method can literally place in the middle of the battlefields is well deserved. There were many times I could commiserate with the misery of the soldiers' on the battlefield. Given that the book is about The Army of the Potomac, its is stilted to a great degree to the story from the side of the Union. The Confederate Army is mentioned slightly, mostly in comparison points of battlefield conditions and overall morale of the combatants. Catton's true moments of genius come in the small side-stories that he pockets into paragraphs in the unfolding battle scenario. Here and there, he details a small set of details on this particular man or that particular unit. The one that stands out in my mind the most is how General R.E. Lee's Special Order #191 is found by two enlisted Union soldiers relaxing in a meadow - the orders being the paper that wrapped three cigars. Catton laments that while the story concerning what happened to the orders is a given in history, there is no recorded instance on exactly what happened to the three cigars. Little caveats such as this, make this book a sheer treasure to read.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A necessary Corrective to Shelby Foote's "The Civil War: A Narrative", is Mr. Catton's History of the Army of the Potomac, of which this is the First Volume of Three. MacClellan made the Army of the Potomac and did that well. But he should have turned it over to a competent tactician. The Peninsular Campaign, and Antietam are covered here. The various trammels of that army, are well described in colourful prose. Should be on every ACW Buff's shelves!

[msf59 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

[Mr. Lincoln's Army] is well-researched and strongly written. I've heard others mention that Shelby Foote is the better writer and that might be, but I felt Bruce Catton did a solid job and for a book that was written over 50 years ago, it had a nice contemporary feel. Catton's love and knowledge of this tempestuous time is impressive.This is the 1st book of his trilogy and covers the early years up to Antietam, which he describes hauntingly in all it's bloody horrific glory. I know there are not to many fans of General George McClellan out there but Catton paints him with a more sympathetic air, explaining his (sometimes misguided) motivations. I give Catton credit though for not letting him off the hook in the battle of Antietam. He hammers him pretty good. It's funny McClellan, in his own memoirs had felt that he had done an admirable job in that gruesome fiasco. How clueless is that? Highly recommended!

[dsullivan800 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this series in my teens and the three books in it remain some of my favorite reads about the American Civil War. Catton is a great storyteller and his books convey a sense of the spirit of the era. The characters come to life in a way that could not be possible with more detailed histories. I don't read Catton to get factual details, but I've never gained a better understanding of the Civil War from any other author.

[stpnwlf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Pre-Antietam narrative on Army of the Potomac.