Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶 Kobayashi Issa) (June 15, 1763 - January 5, 1828) was a Japanese haiku poet. He was born with the name Kobayashi Nobuyuki (and also known as Yataro) in Kashiwabara, Shinano province (present-day Shinanomachi, Nagano prefecture). Leaving behind a troubled family, wherein his farmer father was widowed and remarried unhappily, he studied the art of haiku under Mizoguchi Sogan and Norokuan Chikua at the Katsushika poetry school in present-day Tokyo. He eventually gained patronage from Seibi Natsume .

Despite a multitude of personal trials, his poetry reflected a subjective and childlike simplicity, making liberal use of local dialects and conversational phrases:

Quiet
In the depths of the lake
A peak of cloud.

Come with me and play
Parentless sparrow

Under the pen name of Issa, Kobayashi wrote over 20,000 confessional and observational poems that still console generations of readers today. Though his haiku were very popular, he suffered great monetary instability. His most famous works are Chichi No Shuen Nikki (1801, tr. The Diary at My Father's Death), and Oragaharu (1819, tr. The Year of My Life)

According to the Western Calendar, Issa died on January 5, 1828 in his native village of Kashiwabara, Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture). According to the old Japanese calendar, he died on the 19th day of Eleventh Month, Tenth Year of the Bunsei Era. Since the Tenth Year of Bunsei roughly corresponds with 1827, many sources list this as his year of death.

Trivia

One of Issa's haiku is in J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey [1].

O snail
Climb Mount Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!

Resources

• Sam Hammill (translated by), The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku: Kobayashi Issa, Shambhalla Publications © 1997 ISBN 1-57062-144-6 pbk [180 pp., 160 haiku plus 'The Spring of My Life, an autobiographical sketch of linked prose and haiku]
• David G. Lanoue, Pure Land Haiku: The Art of Priest Issa, Buddhist Books International © 2004 ISBN 0-914910-53-1
• Lewis Mackensie (translated and introduced by), The Autumn Wind: A Selection of the Poems of Issa, Kodansha International © 1984 ISBN 0-87011-657-6 [137 pp. 250 haiku]

External links

• Haiku of Kobayashi Issa a searchable online archive of 5000+ haiku by David G. Lanoue, author of 'Pure Land Haiku: The Art of Priest Issa'