The linked, collaborative poetry of the Basho school (late 17th century) retains its freshness. "Glad to be alive / my poems have been anthologized!" "Shake the ashes / from the dried sardine." The rules governing composition seem convoluted, designed to preserve the exact degree of continuity and discontunuity, coherence and variety, peaks and valleys of attention. The haiku is really the first stanza of a linked poem, having gained autonomy. The translator has two tasks, in this context. One is not to complicate or overexplain, not to destroy freshness and simplicity. The second is to provide enough information so that the poem still makes sense. These are contradictory. Lenore Mayhew is sometimes too minimalistic.

The utter simplicity of "mizu no oto," literally "water's sound." I have seen it translated as "a splash," or as "A deep resonance" (???).