was a Japanese

haikai ''Haikai'' ( Japanese 俳諧 ''comic, unorthodox'') may refer in both Japanese and English to ''haikai no renga'' ( renku), a popular genre of Japanese linked verse, which developed in the sixteenth century out of the earlier aristocratic renga. ...

poet. He was born in

Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Etymology The name "Kanazaw ...

, and spent most of his life in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

working as a doctor. Bonchō was one of

Matsuo Bashō ; born , later known as was the most famous Japanese poet of the Edo period. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative '' haikai no renga'' form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as th ...

's leading disciples and, together with Kyorai, he edited the Bashō school's '' Monkey's Raincoat'' ('' Sarumino'') anthology of 1689. Sieffert, René. ''Bashô et son école Haïkaï'', Les éditions Textuel, 2005, He participated in numerous

renku , or , is a Japanese form of popular collaborative linked verse poetry. It is a development of the older Japanese poetic tradition of ''ushin'' renga, or orthodox collaborative linked verse. At renku gatherings participating poets take turns prov ...

with Bashō and other members of his Shōmon school. A famous

hokku is the opening stanza of a Japanese orthodox collaborative linked poem, '' renga'', or of its later derivative, '' renku'' (''haikai no renga''). From the time of Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694), the ''hokku'' began to appear as an independent poem, ...

by Bonchō: 市中は物のにほひや夏の月　''Machinaka ha / mono no nioi ya / natsu no tsuki'' :Downtown
the smells of things…
summer moon
(trans. Sean Price)

References

External links

The Haiku and Poems of Nozawa Bonchō
*, a 1691

(collaborative linked poem), by Bonchō, Bashō and Kyorai, translated by Sean Price 1640 births 1714 deaths Writers from Kanazawa, Ishikawa Writers of the Edo period 17th-century Japanese poets Japanese haiku poets {{japan-writer-stub