1
A French scholar says he affected the Chinese manner.
When he took his friends into the countryside
To look at blossoms, they all saw Chinese blossoms.
He dressed accordingly and wept for the wild geese of Shosho.
2
One year after making love through the short midsummer night
He walked home at dawn and noticed that the river Oi
Had sunk two feet. The following year was better.
He saw bubbles of crab-froth among the river reeds.
Robert Hass, “Two Views of Buson” from Field Guide. Copyright © 1973 by Robert Hass. Reprinted with the permission of Yale University Press, http://www.yale.edu/yup/.
Source:
Field Guide (Yale University Press, 1973)
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Poet
Robert Hass
b. 1941
POET’S REGION
U.S., Western
Subjects
Summer,
Love,
Seas, Rivers, & Streams,
Poetry & Poets,
Nature,
Arts & Sciences,
Relationships
Poetic Terms
Free Verse
Robert Hass is one of contemporary poetry’s most celebrated and widely-read voices. In addition to his success as a poet, Hass is also recognized as a leading critic and translator, notably of the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz and Japanese haiku masters Basho, Buson and Issa. Critics celebrate Hass’s own poetry for its clarity of expression, its conciseness, and its imagery, often drawn from everyday life. “Hass has noted his own . . .
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Poem Categorization
SUBJECT
Summer,
Love,
Seas, Rivers, & Streams,
Poetry & Poets,
Nature,
Arts & Sciences,
Relationships
POET’S REGION
U.S., Western
Poetic Terms
Free Verse
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