Don't Imitate Me
haiku
playful
Don't Imitate Me - context Summary
Instruction to His Disciples
This haiku, written and published in 1691 in the Sarumino collection, was composed as instruction to Basho's disciples. It warns against copying the master’s manner, urging students toward individual discovery rather than mimicry. The image likening imitation to the two halves of a melon
conveys sameness and dullness. Its brevity is itself didactic: a poetic reprimand that models originality rather than replication.
Don't imitate me; it's as boring as the two halves of a melon.
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