David Trinidad’s Sleeping with Bashō is a masterpiece of reinvention, reimagining, and engagement with haiku’s most famous practitioner. Trinidad’s intimacy with Bashō’s 17th century work comes through as he “translates” him for a modern audience. You’ll encounter Bashō’s splashing frog in a whole new pond, alongside the theme song from Green Acres and music from the B-52s, Donovan, Blondie, and more. You’ll see Bashō’s fireflies anew, this time as they shine on a toy Lite-Brite. Simply brilliant!
—Denise Duhamel
David Trinidad meets Bashō for a moon-viewing party under a willow tree amid a flock of warbling cuckoos. Bringing a deeply felt understanding of the history and practice of haiku, he restages Bashō’s complete body of work in a contemporary landscape of plum-eating boy toys, poetry-editor gatekeepers, and ill-timed Christmas carolers, among others. I was hooked by the meditative quiet and delightful irreverence of Sleeping with Bashō long before the grasses stirred beneath the melting snow.
—Tony Trigilio
David Trinidad’s numerous books include Digging to Wonderland: Memory Pieces, Notes on a Past Life, Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera, and The Late Show. He is also the editor of A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos, Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith, and Divining Poets: Dickinson, an Emily Dickinson tarot deck. Trinidad currently lives in Chicago, where he is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Columbia College.