Issa's Best: A Translator's Selection of Master Haiku

by David G. Lanoue

This book is a guided tour through the work of Japanese haiku master Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), gathering together in one text his most effective and evocative verses. After an introduction to Issa's poetry and life, the translator, David G. Lanoue, presents 1,210 haiku culled from his on-line archive of 10,000. Lanoue writes, "Issa is a poet who speaks to our common humanity in a way that is so honest, so contemporary, his verses might have been written this morning. Bashô is the most revered of the haiku poets of Old Japan, but Issa is the most loved."

Genres: Poetry

221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 15, 2012

Reviews

[Harley]

Issa is one of the four great Japanese haiku poets. David G. Lanoue, the translator, has translated over 10,000 of Issa's haiku and they can be found on his website: http://haikuguy.com/issa/ . This ebook is a collection of 1210 of his favorite haiku of Issa. Since I do not know Japanese, I can not judge the quality of the translations, but some feel too modern. For example,

the old doll
in the junk store window
sunning herself

I can not imagine that people during Issa's time would sun themselves, but maybe I am wrong.

What amazes me is that someone is obsessed enough with Issa to translate 10,000 haiku. That is a lot of work. And in his introduction, Lanoue states that Issa wrote over 20,000 haiku. So I think Lanoue has his work cut out for him. The question is will he finish translating all 20,000 so we can have a complete collection of Issa's haiku. While I have written over 4,000 poems and only 500 of these are haiku, I have a long way to go to catch Issa.

The book is divided into six sections: New Year, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and section of haiku without season words. Within each section, the haiku are clustered around common images like spring rain or spring breeze. There are 19 haiku in a row with the phrase, spring rain, and those are followed by 13 haiku with the phrase, spring breeze.

Here are some of my favorite haiku from this book:

my dead mother —
everytime I see the ocean
everytime...

forest ranger —
he sweeps away spring
with a broom

while grasping
mama's breast ...
the year's first smile

a day for wandering
a day for haiku...
spring rain

Many of the haiku of Issa contain reference to insects, animals and birds. Here are few examples:

a troop of children
march behind her...
mother sparrow

baby sparrows
by the cow and horse
untrampled

eating my rice
my lamplight...
the geese depart

next to my shadow
that
of a frog

casting a spell
on the man...
meadow butterflies

blooming
with butterflies
the dead tree

This is a book worth owning and returning to again and again to taste the insights of Issa and his haiku. I recommend this book for all poets and poetry lovers whether they write haiku or not. Here are a few more haiku to close out this review and to wet your appetite:

rain of cherry blossoms —
the year, too
I've sinned

though my rice sack
is empty...
cherry blossoms!

holding up
the hazy moon...
willow tree

[Aidan]

Truly a great book! Great translations of the haiku master Issa. This book has a fine selection of haiku and is a must read for anyone wanting to enjoy haiku or see the world in a new, playful way like Issa did. While I agree that formatting it in a different manner may have worked in its favour, the positives greatly outweigh the negatives. I can't imagine how much work would have gone into curating this collection in English. Thankyou David G. Lanoue and I look forward to reading more of your translations!

[Patricia Sullivan]

Issa is my favorite classic haiku poet. His observations of life resonate with me. From the beautiful to the ridiculous, his words always make me feel deeply. At times Issa can be brutally honest and irreverent; he speaks to our common humanity with loneliness, sadness, and laughter. I never grow tired of his insights about life.

Some of my favorite haiku by Issa:

chin-deep
in the fallen blossoms...
a frog

short summer night--
in the field turtles
cavort

moon! blossoms!
forty nine years walking around
doing nothing.

swatting a fly
but instead hitting
the Buddha

does the red dawn
delight you
snail?

my dead mother--
every time I see the ocean
every time...

the cricket's
winter residence...
my quilt

in this world
we walk on the roof of hell
gazing at flowers

in this dew-drop world,
it is a dew-drop world,
...and yet...and yet...

[Chris]

poetry crammed into categories

The organization of this book is like visiting a museum where all the blue paintings are in one room and the red ones in another. One “misty spring” poem after another and a dozen “new year first day” haikus all piled together diminish the originality of each. Instead of wandering organically through a body of work, you feel stuck in a repetitive cycle created by a poet with limited vocabulary. Translating poetry is enormously difficult, and I appreciate the years of effort this labor of love required, but sadly, this volume diminished my enthusiasm for Issa.

[Stephen Smith]

Excellent



Excellent translations and overview of the range of work of one of poets known as the " 4 pillars of haiku".

[Incy]

Lovely translarions.
I think it's better when the original is printed beside the translation though

[Matthew Stolte]

Over 1,000 poems by Issa, huge!

[Lynda W.]

great collection

Funny and poignant; straightforward translation of Issa’s haiku give us an understanding of the poet’s hard life and his poetic view of everyday events

[Michael]

Very much enjoyed this collection. No notes, no Japanese text or romanization, but for that kind of information I consulted the excellent online collection of 10,000 poems by Issa maintained by the same translator. The language of the translation is modern and straightforward--Issa "pisses" and "poops" unabashedly. This collection is organized mainly by seasons from spring to winter, the usual pattern of haiku collections. The online site allows one to search for all poems mentioning "sparrow" or "stone Buddha" or whatever one wants. Using this Kindle book and the site together was an ideal combination for me.

[Mark Folse]

Currently dipping in and out of this book. Issa was so prolific you have to skim through to find the real gems If you are already interested in Issa you'll want this book for its scope, but a better introduction is Inch-by-Inch, a short selection translated by Nanao Sakaki and the poems collected in the pocket anthology The Sound of Water, translated by Sam Hamil.

[Matt Morris]

Read my review of this & other books at http://miscmss.blogspot.com/2015/04/f...

[Susan Langer]

The book was very good. It included Issa's haiku for each season. I would have liked to have a little more history of Issa. It is always goo to provide some background about the poet.