Chiyo-ni Woman Haiku Master

Author: * Ningyo Minamoto - 3 Posts on this thread out of 640 Posts sitewide.
Date: May 7, 2004 - 17:41

Chiyo-ni Woman Haiku Master - I read this book over and over. And it begins like this "Basho and Chiyo-ni: when thinking of famous haiku poets these two names have always been in forefront. Among the men there is Basho; among the women there is Chiyo-ni! Japan's most famous woman haiku poet (..) exemplifies the best of the women poets of the Edo period. (...) her life is full of legend, yet two things are certain. She lived the Way of the haikai, appreciationg each moment, creating art as part of everyday life because she was open to her world. And she achieved fame during her lifetime through her intense devotion to her art in a age when women's freedom and creativity were restricted."

Something that the book referes and i would like to highlight, is the healing power of haiku. In Japan as in many traditional societies, words are believed to have spirit or power. Tanka poetry (a precursor of haiku) evolved from shaman chants and in the Edo period poets have mantained that haiku has unusual healing powers and helps to prolong life. There is this story about Chiyo-ni: one day the governor of Kaga invited Chiyo-ni to go to his palace, because he needed her to revive his most beautiful cherry tree. There she spontaneously came up with this haiku:

spring will come again -
without flowers
you'll be firewood

The story tells that the tree began to bloom again. I bet the cherry tree was pretty scared *S*

This is indeed a transparent book with luminous haikus. One of my favourite:

woman's desire
deeply rooted -
the wild violets

The calligraphy above reads:

butterfly on a maiden's path
now behind
now in front

And the image comes from the best site on Chiyo-ni and Women Early Art with excerts of Women in Praise of the Sacred, another splendid book!