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Mountain Tasting: Haiku and Journals of Santoka Taneda

AUTHOR

Santoka Taneda


TRANSLATOR

John Stevens

Mountain Tasting: Haiku and Journals of Santoka Taneda

Mountain Tasting gathers together a wide cross section of haiku with a selection of the diaries of the wandering Japanese poet Santoka (1882—1940). Santoka lived his life in the Zen hermit poetic tradition of Japan that includes Matsuo Basho, Ryokan, and Saigyo Hoshi. The open road was to become both his home and monastery. As he said, “Days I don’t enjoy: Any day I don’t walk, drink sake, and compose haiku.”

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Santōka Taneda was the pen-name of Shōichi Taneda, a Japanese author and haiku poet. He is known for his free verse haiku—a style which does not conform to the formal rules of traditional haiku.

John Stevens lived in Japan for thirty-five years, where he was a professor of Buddhist studies at Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai. Stevens is a widely respected translator, an ordained Buddhist priest, a curator of several major exhibitions of Zen art, and an aikido instructor. He has authored more than thirty books and is one of the foremost Western experts on aikido, holding a ranking of 7th dan Aikikai. Stevens has also studied calligraphy for decades, authoring the classic Sacred Calligraphy of the East.

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