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Self-portrait - Issa
Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) - original name Kobayashi Nobuyki, also called Kobayashi
Yataro. He used the simple pen name Issa and is probably the best
loved of the haiku masters.
As a poet Issa was more robust and
subjective compared to austere, priestly Matsuo Basho (1644-94) and
worldly, sophisticated Yosa Buson (1716-83). By confessing his doubts and
loneliness in highly personal haiku, Issa's poems also have given
consolation to generations of readers.
Kobayashi Issa was born in Kashiwabara,
Shinano province (now part of Shinano Town, Nagano Prefecture), a son of a
farmer. He began writing haiku as a young child, and in 1777,
at the age of fourteen, he was sent by his father to Edo (Tokyo today),
where he studied haiku under the poets Mizoguchi Sogan and Norokuan
Chikua. Issa was a prolific writer of both poetry and prose. He treated
his subjects with humor, excelling particularly at affectionate portrayals
of such creatures as fleas, frogs and sparrows.
During his lifetime Issa wrote over 20,000 haiku.
Close observations of nature and passing but meaningful personal incidents
depict his feelings.
Visit
the Links Page for Issa web sites
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Kobayashi
Issa
(1763 -1827) |
New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.
Goes out,
comes back--
the loves of a cat.
Climb Mount Fuji,
O snail,
but slowly, slowly.
Children imitating cormorants
are even more wonderful
than cormorants.
Under my house
an inchworm
measuring the joists.
Moon, plum blossoms,
this, that,
and the day goes.
O flea! whatever you do,
don't jump;
that way is the river.
In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.
Naked
on a naked horse
in pouring rain!
I'm going out,
flies, so relax,
make love.
O owl!
make some other face.
This is spring rain.
Even with insects--
some can sing,
some can't.
The moon and the flowers,
forty-nine years,
walking around, wasting time.
Full moon:
my ramshackle hut
is what it is.
What good luck!
Bitten by
this year's mosquitoes too.
Red morning sky,
snail;
are you glad of it?
Napped half the day;
no one
punished me!
That gorgeous kite
rising
from the beggar's shack.
Not very anxious
to bloom,
my plum tree.
We humans--
squirming around
among the blossoming flowers.
Crescent moon--
bent to the shape
of the cold.
I'm going to roll over,
so please move,
cricket.
The holes in the wall
play the flute
this autumn evening.
These sea slugs,
they just don't seem
Japanese.
Cuckoo singing:
I have nothing special to do,
neither does the burweed.
Summer night--
even the stars
are whispering to each other.
The world of dew
is the world of dew,
And yet, and yet--
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