Press release: for immediate use.
Ground-breaking exhibition at Wordsworth’s home.
Sometimes crossing continents can reveal more similarities than differences. A five-month.
exhibition, Bashō and Wordsworth: Walking Poets which will be officially opened on Thursday, 26th
June at The Wordsworth Museum, alongside Wordsworth’s home, Dove Cottage in the Lake District,
combining the works of two of literature’s most celebrated lovers of walking and the outdoors.
Matsuo Bashō is as famous in Japan as Wordsworth or Shakespeare is in Britain. And although
Bashō lived over a century before Wordsworth, the two poets had much in common.
They both pioneered the use of everyday language in poetry, they both used the natural world to
express their ideas, and they both composed their poetry as they walked. Each found creative
inspiration in nature, and for each, the act of walking itself was a creative process.
Bashō, probably the most famous poet to have come out of Japan, was a master of haiku and a
prodigious walker, writing predominantly about wildlife and landscapes. In his day he shocked the
establishment by using colloquialisms and common expressions, rather than more formal language,
traditionally used in poetry at the time.
His work often took the form of beautiful scrolls, some of them beautifully illustrated and examples
are on display in the exhibition alongside Dorothy and William Wordsworth’s original manuscripts
and notebooks.
Seeing their words, whether in the Wordsworths’ small notebooks with their cramped handwriting,
full of amendments and corrections, or on Bashō’s beautifully produced and illustrated scrolls, tells
us much about how they each perceived and wrote about the world around them.
The exhibition also features new works by contemporary artists working in a wide range of media,
responding to the manuscripts and what originally inspired them in ways that are as fresh, creative
and radical now, as Wordsworth and Bashō were during their lives.
These new works have been created in a spirit of collaboration, just as Wordsworth collaborated
with his sister and fellow poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge - and just as Bashō collaborated with
other Haiku masters.
Inge Panneels has worked with Minako Shirakura, Manny Ling and Christine Flint-Sato have created
some joint work as have Ewan Clayton and Nao Sakamoto. In total, some 18 acclaimed
contemporary artists, musicians and poets have created new work as part of this exhibition.
Bashō and Wordsworth: Walking Poets is at The Wordsworth Museum, alongside Wordsworth’s
former family home, Dove Cottage in Grasmere, until November 2nd 2014. Entry is included in the
price of admission to Dove Cottage and The Wordsworth Museum.
ENDS
For full details of the Wordsworth Trust’s events and exhibitions programme go to
www.wordsworth.org.uk
For further information or to arrange a press visit, please contact Paul Kleian at
p.kleian@wordsworth.org.uk or phone 015394 35544.
A selection of photographs of both historical and contemporary exhibits can be found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zaathwmh083cy2z/AADuPLsv5DLeEkdJTqSYrRTla
Notes for Editors:
 Dove Cottage & the Wordsworth Museum are open daily from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm (last
admission 5 pm).
 The Jerwood Centre is open by appointment to all with a research interest. Tours of the
Jerwood Centre are available subject to staff availability.
 Exhibitions at the Wordsworth Museum are assisted by a grant from the Northern Rock
Foundation.
 The work of the Wordsworth Trust is funded by a combination of income from visitors to
Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, donations from private and corporate sponsors
and trusts, and Arts Council England.
 Bashō and Wordsworth: Walking Poets has been organised by the Wordsworth Trust and
the WALK Research Centre at the University of Sunderland in association with Bath Spa
University and has been made possible with the support of the Arts Council England and the
National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation,
the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation.