Haiku Comics

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100 Frogs

More than 100 Frogs

old pond
a frog jumps in
(sound of water)
–Basho

Cover of One Hundred Frogs by Hiroaki Sato

That haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) is perhaps the best known haiku in the world. In fact, there’s a now classic collection One Hundred Frogs by Hiroaki Sato (Weatherhill, 1983) that has 100 different interpretations/translations of Basho’s haiku. They cover more than a century’s worth of poets from Shiki to Allen Ginsberg and range from literal translations to prose and sonnet versions.

I was drawn back to this compilation by the recent publication of notebook pages by Canadian poet bpNichol (1944-1988). Published on the occasion of what would have been his 80th birthday, some lines of poetry from the notebooks of bpNichol (Coach House Books, 2024) includes 80 pieces of work from the 1980s. Among the selections is this:

He translated Basho’s haiku with one letter! (Thinking about the title, the use of the word “plop” to translate “the sound of water” was used by RH Blyth in his translation, which in the 1950s and 1960s were well known. See AHOPC #18.) Discovering this in turn led me back to a book of variations by bpNichol (Coach House Books, 2013) and another interpretation of Basho’s haiku (which also appeared in AHOPC #13) by Nichol:

Which then circled me back to 100 Frogs — and an idea: Let’s create a haiku comics version of 100 Frogs! Send me your interpretation/translation of Basho’s haiku as a comic and I’ll share them here as they come in. Send as jpg to clash1958@gmail.com. Ed. note: Scroll to bottom to see submissions so far.

To get things rolling, here are two versions I made — the first one about 10 years ago as a class assignment and the second one last year as part of a series “Reading Basho.”

Here are your interpretations:

Submitted by David Lasky, Seattle (2020)
Submitted by Jari Thymian with this note: “The idea to do a comic for Basho’s frog haiku made me think about all the people who have read or heard the haiku and how it lands in their minds and stays there. It is the frog heard round the world. ”

Timeline: Now

Warning: This incomplete history maps my journey as a poet learning about comics and doesn’t follow a strict chronological order.

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A History of Poetry Comics

THE BOOK of Death Haiku Comics

Haiku comics are a relatively new development in the history of poetry comics. While a scattering of forerunners can be found in the 1970s and 1980s, we consider the first haiku comic to be a four-panel rendering of a Basho haiku by the Canadian comics artist Seth published in Drawn & Quarterly in 1995. (See AHOPC #21 for a closer look at this.) Since then there has been markedly more comics artists/poets creating haiku comics.

Cover of Japanese Death Poems compiled by Yoel Hoffman

Joining the movement is Seattle artist/writer William Chen, whose new work is The Book of Death Haiku Comics. Using as a resource Japanese Death Poems (Tuttle, 1986) compiled by Yoel Hoffman, Chen has made his own translations to which he adds skillfully executed drawings that feel like a whole graphic novel in one page.

Chen talks about his project: “Jisei, which come from Japan, are poems written on the occasion of one’s own death. I don’t remember how I stumbled on them, but when I did, death haiku immediately struck me as a fascinating subject for interpreting and illustrating as poetry comics.”

Chen lived in Otsu, Japan (just a 10-minute, local train ride from Kyoto) for about a year. He made a living teaching at an English conversation school to people of all ages. While there he saw sites, studied Japanese, and learned to Pop (Popping, the dance style).

Here’s one example from his forthcoming chapbook:

ChinE’s Fleeting Fireflies

For a copy of “The Book of Death Haiku Comics” visit his table at Short Run (Nov. 1, 2025, in Seattle). After that, you can go to Chen’s Ko-Fi store here. He will also have copies in a few local comic shops around Seattle (Fantagraphics, Phoenix, Outsider).

Follow Chen on Bluesky @zenosarrow.net.

READ MORE: I came across “Japanese Death Poems” in 2006. I was staying with a poet-friend in San Francisco while doing readings for “Punk Poems,” and he had a copy in his library. I couldn’t put it down and had to get my own copy so I could finish consuming it. Hoffman’s background introduction is essential. The poems are in two large sections: Death Poems by Zen Monks and Death Poems by Haiku Poets. And the Index of Poetic Terms at the end of the book provides additional context and cultural insights. Recommended.

Timeline: 2025

Warning: This incomplete history maps my journey as a poet learning about comics and doesn’t follow a strict chronological order.