A new translation of the selected verse of Kobayashi Issa, the eighteenth-century Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest noted for his haiku.

This book sketches the life and poetry of Kobayishi Issa, a major Japanese haiku poet, and tries to identify the sources of his bold individualism and all-embracing humanism in terms of his long and checkered carrier.

"Shiki's distinctive vision and direct expression make a tone recognizably his own, conveyed beautifully in these pages' translations. We hear Shiki's haiku as the voice of a friend bringing complex news in a few intimate words. These haiku are drawn from a world that feels close to our own, and they bring our own lives and world closer. Shiki's poems are necessary and delicious as mountain water, carrying the mountain's hidden minerals from inside it to inside us." --Jane Hirshfield, author ofThe Heart of HaikuandThe Ink Dark Moon Last year's dream I wake to this year's reality Shiki is considered by the Japanese as one of the masters of haiku. He radically reformed the haiku, suggesting "sketching from life" as an aesthetic.

The 100 paintings in this book are based on haiku poems by Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), who is considered to be one of the four greatest masters of the Japanese haiku tradition. Issa's short poems explore nearly all aspects of human experience with delightful brevity. The poems were translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue.

The Essential Haiku brings together Robert Hass's beautifully fresh translations of the three great masters of the Japanese haiku tradition: Matsuo Basho (1644-94), the ascetic and seeker, and the haiku poet most familiar to English readers; Yosa Buson (1716-83), the artist, a painter renowned for his visually expressive poetry; and Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), the humanist, whose haiku are known for their poignant or ironic wit. Each haiku master's section of the book is prefaced with an eloquent and informative introduction by Robert Hass, followed by a selection of over 100 poems and then by other poetry or prose by the poet, including journals and nature writing. Opening with Hass's superb introductory essay on haiku, the book concludes with a section devoted to Basho's writings and conversations on poetry. The seventeen-syllable haiku form is rooted in a Japanese tradition of close observation of nature, of making poetry from subtle suggestion. Each haiku is a meditation, a centring, a crystalline moment of realisation. Reading them has a way of bringing about calm and peace within the reader. The symbolism of the seasons and the Japanese habit of mind blend together in these poems to create an alchemy of reflection that is unsurpassed in literature. Infused by its great practitioners with the spirit of Zen Buddhism, the haiku served as an example of the power of direct observation to the first generation of American modernist poets like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams as well as an example of spontaneity and Zen alertness to the new poets of post-war America and Britain. Universal in its appeal, Robert Hass's The Essential Haiku is the definitive introduction to haiku and its greatest poets, and has been a bestseller in America for twenty years. 'I know that for years I didn't see how deeply personal these poems were or, to say it another way, how much they have the flavour - Basho might have said "the scent" - of particular human life, because I had been told and wanted to believe that haiku were never subjective. I think it was D.H. Lawrence who said the soul can get to heaven in one leap but that, if it does, it leaves a demon in its place. Better to sink down through the level of these poems - their attention to the year, their ideas about it, the particular human consciousness the poems reflect, Basho's profound loneliness and sense of suffering, Buson's evenness of temper, his love for the materials of art and for the colour and shape of things, Issa's pathos and comedy and anger' - Robert Hass

**Chosen for 2020 NCTE Notable Poetry Books and Verse Novels List** **Winner of 2020 Northern Lights Book Award for Poetry** **Winner of 2019 Skipping Stones Honor Awards** My First Book of Haiku Poems introduces children to inspirational works of poetry and art that speak of our connection to the natural world, and that enhance their ability to see an entire universe in the tiniest parts of it. Each of these 20 classic poems by Issa, Shiki, Basho, and other great haiku masters is paired with a stunning original painting that opens a door to the world of a child's imagination. A fully bilingual children's book, My First Book of Haiku Poems includes the original versions of the Japanese poems (in Japanese script and Romanized form) on each page alongside the English translation to form a complete cultural experience. Each haiku poem is accompanied by a "dreamscape" painting by award-winning artist Tracy Gallup that will be admired by children and adults alike. Commentaries offer parents and teachers ready-made "food for thought" to share with young readers and stimulate a conversation about each work.

American readers have been fascinated, since their exposure to Japanese culture late in the nineteenth century, with the brief Japanese poem called the hokku or haiku. The seventeen-syllable form is rooted in a Japanese tradition of close observation of nature, of making poetry from subtle suggestion. Infused by its great practitioners with the spirit of Zen Buddhism, the haiku has served as an example of the power of direct observation to the first generation of American modernist poets like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and also as an example of spontaneity and Zen alertness to the new poets of the 1950's. This definite collection brings together in fresh translations by an American poet the essential poems of the three greatest masters: Matsuo Basho in the seventeenth century; Yosa Buson in the eighteenth century; and Kobayashi Issa in the early nineteenth century. Robert Haas has written a lively and informed introduction, provided brief examples by each poet of their work in the halibun, or poetic prose form, and included informal notes to the poems. This is a useful and inspiring addition to The Essential Poets series.

Originally published in 1985 in a limited edition, this selection of haiku by Issa, the great nineteenth-century Japanese poet, is translated by Nanao Sakaki, the legendary contemporary Japanese poet. Widely regarded as one of the four haiku masters of Japan, Issa is much loved for his compassion and humorous sense of equality with the natural world. Each poem is rendered in Sakaki's handwriting in both English and Kanji and includes Romanji text as well. The translations are among the freshest and most concise renditions of Issa's haiku. Also included is an interview with Sakaki about the life, wanderings, and work of Issa as well as the ongoing tradition embodied by his poems. Beautifully designed, this book is a treasure for admirers both of Issa and of Nanao Sakaki.

Perhaps the first novel to take as its subject the appreciation and crafting of haiku, this is the story of Buck-Teeth, a provincial poet and fictitious student of the Japanese classical haiku master Issa, who, in the course of his training, travels to ancient Edo and contemporary New Orleans, falls in and out of love, considers the many schools of haiku, and ultimately learns what it is to be a poet. Along the way we are offered gentle lessons on haiku and what we might put into it, how it and we got this way, and what it all might mean.