Mukai Kyorai

Mukai Kyorai, original name Mukai Kane-toki, 向井去来 (1651 - 8 October 1704) was a Japanese haikai poet, and a close disciple of Matsuo Bashō.

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Quotes edit

Sadly I see
the light fade on my palm:
a firefly.
- Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6. According to Hoffman after his sister's, Chine's, death.

The cuckoo sings
at right angle
to the lark
- BW (tr.), in: Faubion Bowers (ed.), The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology. 2012. p. 29

'Yes, yes!' I answered,
But someone still knocked
At the snow-mantled gate
- Blyth (tr.), in: WKD - Matsuo Basho Archives: Mukai Kyorai, matsuobasho-wkd.blogspot.com. Accessed 2018-06-23.

The late master said: "What will 'a monkey' do here? Tell me how you have come up with the conception of the poem." Kyorai replied: "I was thinking that the speaker, enjoying the bright moonlight, wanders in mountains and fields while reciting poems. At that moment he saw another poet under the cliff." The late master said: "It would add more furyu if you make here comes another companion of the moon' the poet's self-portrait, though this will make it a first-person poem.
- Peipei Qiu. Basho and the Dao: The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai. 2005. p. 98