Perth Poetry Club introduces Matsuo Bashō & 170 Frogs + open-mike, this Saturday 27th January, 2pm-4pm, Perth (Boorloo) time.
Matsuo Bashō wrote his famous Frog haiku in about 1686-87.
In Japanese, it reads
Furu ike ya | kawazu tobikomu | mizu no oto
Believe it or not, there are at least 170 different English translations of this simple 17-syllable haiku.
Is there more than one frog in the haiku? There also is an alternative version of this haiku, written by Bashō.
The frog haiku was never intended to be a stand-alone poem. Some say that Basho never wrote a single haiku in any case.
Bashō also had some challenging advice for his contemporaries, that may still be relevant today.
What was Bashō last haiku? Is it his death poem?
The idea, this Saturday is to explore all of this and possibly read up to 100 versions (we won’t get that far) of the Frog haiku.
But we would also like to hear as much open-mike as well. Open-mike haiku and other Japanese forms are more than welcome, but also if you are doing haiku, please bring a longer poem as well. We also have a world exponent of HARKOO lurking in our midst and hopefully we will hear some of that.
The idea is to enjoy ourselves and celebrate poetry at the Moon and via Zoom.
Saturday, 27th January 2024, 2pm to 4pm Perth Aus WST (GMT+8hrs).
Matsuo Bashō & 170 Frogs + open-mike
at The Moon Café, 323 William Street, Northbridge
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84254037443
A great space to be on a Saturday afternoon 2pm-4pm WST.
In weeks to come, we have:
27-Jan-24
Matsuo Bashō & 170 Frogs + open-mike
3-Feb-24
F L E S H, with Deanne Leber & Gabriela Antonini + open-mike
10-Feb-24
Mega Open-mike event, 5minutes max per open-miker - every open-miker is a mini-feature
17-Feb-24
Fran Graham + open-mike
… All with open-mike, not to be missed …