The Basho Variations

by Steve McCaffery

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 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.

Genres: Poetry

50 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2007

About the author

Steve McCaffery is the author of over twenty-five books of poetry and criticism. He has twice been awarded the Gertrude Stein Award for innovative poetry and twice shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. His poems have been published in more than a dozen countries. A long-time resident of Toronto, he is currently the David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters, University at Buffalo.

Reviews

[Julianna Garofalo · Rating 3 out of 5]

just wait until the lesbians on frog TikTok get a load of this

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collections of poems can sometimes get, well, boring. This collections, however, is actually fun the whole way through. Nothing but poems about frogs, and it doesn't get old.