The Basho Variations

The Basho Variations gathers thirty-four translations of Basho’s famous haiku. In doing so it enters an august (albeit scanty) lineage of maverick redactions of this poem that include (as inaugural) the frog pond plop by Dom Sylvester Hudard and the fog prondl pop by Gerry Gilbert. Inspired by Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, it also joins the company of his earlier Restricted Translation with Imperfect Level Shift (After Basho) as well as the Frogments from the Frag Pool: Haiku after Basho by fellow ludicians de langage Gary Barwin and Derek Beaulieu; Beaulieu?s solo ((plop)) and Basho’s Frogger (a Zen video game) created by the Prize Budget for Boys.