Record of a haiku exchange on kaishi writing paper

This sheet of kaishi writing paper is inscribed with verse by Japan’s most famous haiku poet, Matsuo Bashō, and one of his pupils in the teacher’s own handwriting. When this work was first publically displayed at Seattle Asian Art Museum in 2015, it created a small sensation among literary specialists in Japan because not only were the Bashō poems recorded here previously unknown, the work must date to relatively early in his career as a poet, before he turned forty. In the West, it would be the equivalent of discovering a manuscript with previously unpublished poems by (Bashō’s contemporary) John Milton in his own hand. At the time of the discovery, the Bashō expert Professor Tamaki Tsukasa stated that the handwriting, seal, and signature could also be authenticated as genuine, keeping in mind that forgeries of Bashō manuscripts abound (for instance, The Met has one in its collection).

The document records the exchange of poems with Sugiki Shōei (Fusai, 1628–1706)), a master of wabicha tea ceremony and haikai poet. A record of an exchange of poetic sentiments such as this, interwoven with allusions to Buddhist enlightenment, tea, sake, and a humble dwelling, inscribed by the master Bashō in his distinctive, idiosyncratic handwriting would have been preserved as a tea hanging. The exchange reads as follows:

The man of leisure
clutches my sleeve—
What is it? Haiku.
—Shōei

My first move toward
enlightenment: Answering
the rain falling on the plantains.

I broke off
a Rose of Sharon as a garnish
for my sake cup.
—Bashō

The hut is sparsely furnished, and storms have broken the walls, rain has soaked the tatami mats. Outside the window, the plants do as they please, and the trees do not correct their bends.

The householder I admire
dwells in a forlorn shack
amid the vines of ivy.
—Bashō

I think I will pick some
to boil water for tea:
stems of bush clover.
—Shōei

(Translations by Paul Atkins from labels at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, 2015)