Hello world!

Welcome, travelers. The backcountry trail winds ahead–& within (its natural territory). Thanks to guides and caretakers across space, time, & language, it opens even here & now (wherever that may be), as writer & reader become one.

We may welcome that wandering spirit of poetry pen-named Basho as our core guide, while he passes along offerings from countless sources, multi-faceted moment to deeply rooted legacies of history, culture, & experience.

No one is at once more rooted in the moment & connected to roots, linking sources & readers in a network of shared awareness crossing time, space, & language…. At once master practitioner of venerable traditions & radical pioneer of the freshly made, Basho doesn’t just walk the walk, but shares it & its impact with each close reader as intimate traveling companion.

In all the history of poetry, no one has had more impact on writers, artists & deep culture, from both embodied example & recorded teachings, precept & practice. Nowhere is his legacy more alive–nor its range more clear– than in his final masterpiece, the oku no hosomichi, ostensibly the account of a journey north, up one coast, through the wild mountainous interior, down the far coast.

In the process, with readers as companions, he penetrates deep into the culture, history, and spirit of the land, with nature & art as one, fundamental realities of being & response, yet does so with the lightest touch–sketching & evoking as much between the words & lines than in them.

The library’s basho-wing.xyz site contains in-depth discussion of his hokku (“opening verses”); renga (“linked poetry”); & haibun (lightly brushed “sketches” of linked prose & poetry), each a transformation of what had come before, all embodied in the oku no hosomichi together.

Meanwhile, backcountryways.xyz provides a detailed Trail Companion Guide to the oku no hosomichi itself, with passage-by-passage commentary at various levels; along with transliterations & alternative translations of the verses; discussion of the hidden games & quasi-renga; as well as a deep dive into the nuances (arts) of Basho translation….