The Narrow Inland Road

“When we disembark at Senju, my heart is heavy, overwhelmed by the thought of the three thousand leagues before me; I see a vision of crossroads and weep tears of farewell.”In the spring of 1689, the poet Basho and his disciple Sora bid a final farewell to their gathered friends before setting out from Senju on roads unknown. They were to journey inland to the wilds of northern Japan, to famed places of worship and legend, spreading poetry along the way—a grand pilgrimage, both spiritual and literary, but for Bashō there was little exception: the way of poetry, of Zen, even of life, had fundamentally become one unified path.The account of the journey would become a cultural touchstone and change the course of Japanese poetry. Basho’s haiku captured the transience of life: in a handful of words, we see the changing of the seasons, the play of light on a leaf, or the faces of those who have come and gone below. Not only did The Narrow Inland Road inspire a raft of Zen writing, but its deft mix of prose and poetry ushered in the new literary form of haibun—a genre that’s since appeared in the West in the writings of Kenneth Rexroth, Ocean Vuong, and other celebrated Anglosphere poets. Philip Guest's lucid translation restores the text to its present tense and epistolary form. In contrast to the many freer adaptations, Guest offers us a true literal rendering. His language is direct and without embellishment, after the manner of Basho himself. This present edition features a facsimile of the original 1702 text in parallel to the translation, and includes both notes and a map.