SUSTAINABILITY, BASHO, AND A NEW BOOK

 

What does the 17^th century poet Bashô have to do with sustainability? As a Buddhist, this haiku master revered nature. His haiku celebrate frogs, cicadas, summer rain and much more. He lived in simpler times when sustainability was a way of life, not a call to save the planet. 

Bashô traveled by foot throughout Japan and recorded his impressions. The Narrow Road to the Interior is his literary travelogue in a totally new poetic form – haibun. Haibun consists of a paragraph of prose followed by a haiku. The haiku is meant to complement the text or suggest new meaning. My new book is both a nod to Bashô and a call to sustainable practices.

the seed of all song
is the farmer’s busy hum
as he plants his rice

           ~Bashô, The Narrow Road to the Interior 

 

Thank you to Linda, hosting today from A World Edgewise. My blog has been on vacation for a long time - Covid, broken arm, rehab, other projects. Sometimes it's a challenge to pick up from where you left off!

 This month I’m thrilled to announce publication of Food for All our Tomorrows, Poems on Seed, Soil, and Sustainability by the Asian Rural Institute Press. AFARI (American Friends of ARI) has generously printed copies for a North American audience.

 

This book is a collection of twenty-nine bi-lingual poems for middle grade in the haibun style. Four years in the making, the idea for this book germinated throughout three volunteer stints at the Asian Rural Institute in Tochigi, Japan. Though the haiku that complete each haibun are classified as English language haiku, I hope that Bashô might have approved.

ARI is tucked away on a hillside in Japan. It’s a green school, one committed to sustainable farming where grassroots people can learn and share ideas for building a better world.

 

My husband Bob and I spent 4 months at ARI in 2010, and two months each in 2013 and 2018. We planted and harvested, mucked and fed pigs, along with chickens, goats, and fish. We provided office support, cooked meals, worshiped, sang and played together. 

 

And we fell in love with ARI where grassroots participants from Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Africa and South America produce food, honor the earth by caring for the soil, conserve resources, and care for each other.

 

I am honored that the Asian Rural Institute chose to publish this book. I hope it will plant many seeds- seeds of respect for soil and plants, and seeds of awareness of our need for each other.