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Maestros del haiku
The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku
Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), along with Basho and Buson, is considered one of the three greatest haiku poets of Japan, known for his attention to poignant detail and his playful sense of humor. Issa's most-loved work, The Spring of My Life, is an autobiographical sketch of linked prose and haiku in the tradition of Basho's famous Narrow Road to the Interior.
In addition to The Spring of My Life, the translator has included more than 160 of Issa's best haiku and an introduction providing essential information on Issa's life and valuable comments on translating (and reading) haiku.
In addition to The Spring of My Life, the translator has included more than 160 of Issa's best haiku and an introduction providing essential information on Issa's life and valuable comments on translating (and reading) haiku.
212 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1819
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About the author
Kobayashi Issa
118 books261 followersKobayashi Issa was a Japanese poet known for his haiku poems and journals. He is regarded as one of the four haiku masters in Japan, along with Bashō, Buson and Shiki. Reflecting the popularity and interest in Issa as man and poet, Japanese books on Issa outnumber those on Buson, and almost equal those on Bashō.
Although better known by his pen name Issa, he was born Kobayashi Yataro in 1763 on a farm in central Japan.
Although better known by his pen name Issa, he was born Kobayashi Yataro in 1763 on a farm in central Japan.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
April 30, 2021
Issa is considered to be one of the greatest haiku poets in Japan, known for attention to details, and I can confirm that his status is well deserved. This book is in two parts, the first being an autobiographical sketch of about a year, with poems – both his and others’ – linked into them, the second part then being 160+ other haiku (though it has a few already included in the first part of the book). The short introduction gives a short background on his life, information on the translation, and some guidance in reading haiku.
All alone at home,
my wife, like me, is watching
this full moon rise
His life was filled with much loneliness, poverty, loss, and homelessness, but I think these experienced made him to be just the right kind of poet, and they gave him compassion towards animals and people he met on his travels and at home. Of course they also gave him a lifelong struggle with his emotions, but in the end he could look back on his life with certain calmness and realism.
As simple as that –
spring has finally arrived
with a pale blue sky
His influencers include Basho, Tu Fu, and Po Chu-I, of whose poems I’ve read many. The poems talk about nature, festivals, animals, seasons, life situations, briefness of life, moods – there’s much variety. The Spring Of My Life also has some stories, like celebrating New Year, the death of one of his daughters (smallpox), start of a travel journey, childhood memories, and not getting rice cakes as a present at a certain festival time though was expecting to get them like every year before. Some stories were slightly ‘wishing to unread’ for me, but mostly they were fine, so no reason to lower the star level here.
My noontime nap
sweetened by voices singing
rice-planting songs
Although I read this pretty quickly, I can see myself returning and rereading this book again, slower, just to get another taste of these haiku. I can feel the desire to read them again now, for they are so good and hold more meanings than one. It’s easy to see why he is regarded so highly.
All alone at home,
my wife, like me, is watching
this full moon rise
His life was filled with much loneliness, poverty, loss, and homelessness, but I think these experienced made him to be just the right kind of poet, and they gave him compassion towards animals and people he met on his travels and at home. Of course they also gave him a lifelong struggle with his emotions, but in the end he could look back on his life with certain calmness and realism.
As simple as that –
spring has finally arrived
with a pale blue sky
His influencers include Basho, Tu Fu, and Po Chu-I, of whose poems I’ve read many. The poems talk about nature, festivals, animals, seasons, life situations, briefness of life, moods – there’s much variety. The Spring Of My Life also has some stories, like celebrating New Year, the death of one of his daughters (smallpox), start of a travel journey, childhood memories, and not getting rice cakes as a present at a certain festival time though was expecting to get them like every year before. Some stories were slightly ‘wishing to unread’ for me, but mostly they were fine, so no reason to lower the star level here.
My noontime nap
sweetened by voices singing
rice-planting songs
Although I read this pretty quickly, I can see myself returning and rereading this book again, slower, just to get another taste of these haiku. I can feel the desire to read them again now, for they are so good and hold more meanings than one. It’s easy to see why he is regarded so highly.
September 30, 2017
It is often said that the greatest pleasures result in the greatest misery. But why is it that my little child, who’s had no chance to savor even half the world’s pleasures—who should be green as new needles on the eternal pine—why should she be found on her deathbed, puffy with blisters raised by the despicable god of smallpox? How can I, her father, stand by and watch her fade away each day like a perfect flower suddenly ravaged by rain and mud?
On hands and knees on
a shaky bridge: a cuckoo
cries far below
A butterfly
flutters past—my body feels
the dust of ages
The hail has fallen—
in moonlight the young hookers
quietly return
Thus spring begins: old
stupidities repeated,
new errors invented
In a bitter wind
they wait—two bits per trick—
outside a whore’s shack
For you too, my fleas,
the night passes so slowly.
You too are lonely
This world of dew
is only a world of dew—
and yet . . . oh and yet . . .
Buzzing noisily
by my ear, the mosquito
must know I’m old
Mosquito larvae
are idle—like me today,
like me tomorrow
So many breezes
wander through my summer room:
but never enough
On hands and knees on
a shaky bridge: a cuckoo
cries far below
A butterfly
flutters past—my body feels
the dust of ages
The hail has fallen—
in moonlight the young hookers
quietly return
Thus spring begins: old
stupidities repeated,
new errors invented
In a bitter wind
they wait—two bits per trick—
outside a whore’s shack
For you too, my fleas,
the night passes so slowly.
You too are lonely
This world of dew
is only a world of dew—
and yet . . . oh and yet . . .
Buzzing noisily
by my ear, the mosquito
must know I’m old
Mosquito larvae
are idle—like me today,
like me tomorrow
So many breezes
wander through my summer room:
but never enough
November 15, 2016
"In Susaka Township in Shinano Province, a certain Dr. Nakamura, with capricious nastiness, killed a pair of snakes as they were mating. Late that night he was so overcome with searing pain in his penis that it rotted and fell off and he died.
The doctor’s son, Santetsu, followed in his father’s profession. He was a big man with an enormous mushroom-shaped penis. On his wedding night, however, he was dismayed to find it hanging useless, soft and thin as a candlewick. Overcome with shame, he sought other women, as many as a hundred, hoping to make it with them in order to recover, but always with the same embarrassing result, until he eventually sought refuge in seclusion.
Until I heard this story, I’d never been interested in tales of the supernatural, thinking them no more than regional folktales popularized in old anthologies. But this story prompted me to consider the vengeance of snakes and how the family suffered in turn.
All sentient beings are given life, even fleas and lice, and life is equally dear to each. It is bad enough to kill, but to kill them while they are in the act of procreation is truly terrible."
----
"Nursing, mother counts
the fleabites on her daughter’s
small white body"
---
"Celebratory poem for a small child:
Even faster than
we had dreamed, you have outgrown
your first kimono"
---
"Just beyond the gate,
a neat yellow hole—
someone pissed in the snow"
---
"Like misty moonlight,
watery, bewildering—
our temporal way"
---
"Swatting the housefly
on the blossom, I also crush
the flower"
---
"At this lonely grave,
the one constant visitor
is a winter wren"
---
"A mountain temple—
hearing the stag’s piercing cry
from the balcony"
---
"In the midst of this world
we stroll along the roof of hell
gawking at flowers"
---
"So many fleabites,
but on her lovely young skin
they are beautiful"
---
"Autumn evening—
the hole in my shoji sounds like
a flute being blown"
---
"Among blooming flowers
we continue our writhing—
all living beings"
The doctor’s son, Santetsu, followed in his father’s profession. He was a big man with an enormous mushroom-shaped penis. On his wedding night, however, he was dismayed to find it hanging useless, soft and thin as a candlewick. Overcome with shame, he sought other women, as many as a hundred, hoping to make it with them in order to recover, but always with the same embarrassing result, until he eventually sought refuge in seclusion.
Until I heard this story, I’d never been interested in tales of the supernatural, thinking them no more than regional folktales popularized in old anthologies. But this story prompted me to consider the vengeance of snakes and how the family suffered in turn.
All sentient beings are given life, even fleas and lice, and life is equally dear to each. It is bad enough to kill, but to kill them while they are in the act of procreation is truly terrible."
----
"Nursing, mother counts
the fleabites on her daughter’s
small white body"
---
"Celebratory poem for a small child:
Even faster than
we had dreamed, you have outgrown
your first kimono"
---
"Just beyond the gate,
a neat yellow hole—
someone pissed in the snow"
---
"Like misty moonlight,
watery, bewildering—
our temporal way"
---
"Swatting the housefly
on the blossom, I also crush
the flower"
---
"At this lonely grave,
the one constant visitor
is a winter wren"
---
"A mountain temple—
hearing the stag’s piercing cry
from the balcony"
---
"In the midst of this world
we stroll along the roof of hell
gawking at flowers"
---
"So many fleabites,
but on her lovely young skin
they are beautiful"
---
"Autumn evening—
the hole in my shoji sounds like
a flute being blown"
---
"Among blooming flowers
we continue our writhing—
all living beings"
April 27, 2016
The Spring of my Life
Kobayashi Issa
Translation by Sam Hamill
Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman
The poet Issa is beloved throughout his homeland and Japanese schoolchildren commit his poignant nature poems to memory. Adults appreciate his humor, and scholars decry the self-pity which shows through his work.
The winter fly
I caught and finally freed
The cat quickly ate - Issa
For this reviewer, the poetry of Issa represents a triumph of the human spirit. The events of his life transcend sadness to reach the heights of pathos and tragedy. His mother died when he was but two years old, and his grandmother took over the responsibility of child rearing. She sent him to study poetry with a local scholar at an early age. When he reached age eight; his grandmother died and his father remarried. His stepmother abused him.
Mother I weep
For you as I watch the sea
Each time I watch the sea - Issa
He left home for Edo (now Tokyo) at age twelve to study poetry and Zen, and became a homeless scholar on the streets. After many years as an itinerant poet, he returned home to nurse his dying father. In his fifties he married a much younger woman, but all of their children died at an early age. The final child died due to care by an incompetent nurse, shortly after the death of the mother. He married again in his sixties, but he and his pregnant wife moved into a shed after their house burned. He died there, and shortly after, the wife gave birth to a daughter who lived to continue his line.
The Spring of My Life is haiban, a book of narrative prose with haiku, in the same tradition as Narrow Road to the Interior (Basho). The following passage illustrates this point.
“Visiting my daughter’s grave on July 25th, one month after her death.
The red flower
You always wanted to pick --
Now this autumn wind”
Among the sad verses are many hopeful ones, truly beautiful, like the following:
The distant mountains
Are reflected in the eye
Of the dragonfly
Issa is rated among the three great masters of haiku, along with Basho and Buson. The book, The Spring of my Life is a classic. Translator Sam Hamill included not only the full text the book, but also 250 haiku selected from the many thousands attributed to Issa. It is well worth the read.
Kobayashi Issa
Translation by Sam Hamill
Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman
The poet Issa is beloved throughout his homeland and Japanese schoolchildren commit his poignant nature poems to memory. Adults appreciate his humor, and scholars decry the self-pity which shows through his work.
The winter fly
I caught and finally freed
The cat quickly ate - Issa
For this reviewer, the poetry of Issa represents a triumph of the human spirit. The events of his life transcend sadness to reach the heights of pathos and tragedy. His mother died when he was but two years old, and his grandmother took over the responsibility of child rearing. She sent him to study poetry with a local scholar at an early age. When he reached age eight; his grandmother died and his father remarried. His stepmother abused him.
Mother I weep
For you as I watch the sea
Each time I watch the sea - Issa
He left home for Edo (now Tokyo) at age twelve to study poetry and Zen, and became a homeless scholar on the streets. After many years as an itinerant poet, he returned home to nurse his dying father. In his fifties he married a much younger woman, but all of their children died at an early age. The final child died due to care by an incompetent nurse, shortly after the death of the mother. He married again in his sixties, but he and his pregnant wife moved into a shed after their house burned. He died there, and shortly after, the wife gave birth to a daughter who lived to continue his line.
The Spring of My Life is haiban, a book of narrative prose with haiku, in the same tradition as Narrow Road to the Interior (Basho). The following passage illustrates this point.
“Visiting my daughter’s grave on July 25th, one month after her death.
The red flower
You always wanted to pick --
Now this autumn wind”
Among the sad verses are many hopeful ones, truly beautiful, like the following:
The distant mountains
Are reflected in the eye
Of the dragonfly
Issa is rated among the three great masters of haiku, along with Basho and Buson. The book, The Spring of my Life is a classic. Translator Sam Hamill included not only the full text the book, but also 250 haiku selected from the many thousands attributed to Issa. It is well worth the read.
February 7, 2017
Leo los haikus de Kobayashi Issa de un libro que es una cucada, gentileza de Satori Ediciones. Se trata de una editorial especializada en literatura japonesa con sede en Gijón que ofrece unos libros monísimos.
La traducción, la introducción y los comentarios son de Fernando Rodríguez-Izquierdo y Gavala, uno de los mayores especialistas en traducción de haikus y literatura japonesa en español y del que estoy leyendo simultáneamente El Haiku Japonés, obra muy recomendable para todo aquél interesado en este tema.
Ambas lecturas son ideales para introducirse en el fascinante mundo del haiku de una forma amena y placentera.
La traducción, la introducción y los comentarios son de Fernando Rodríguez-Izquierdo y Gavala, uno de los mayores especialistas en traducción de haikus y literatura japonesa en español y del que estoy leyendo simultáneamente El Haiku Japonés, obra muy recomendable para todo aquél interesado en este tema.
Ambas lecturas son ideales para introducirse en el fascinante mundo del haiku de una forma amena y placentera.
August 3, 2007
Of all the classical haijin (haiku poets), I'm fondest of Kobayashi Issa. He seems the most endearingly human, empathizing with even the smallest of creatures. Knowing a bit about his life makes his poetry especially resonant.
February 26, 2010
Finished reading at Stoney's over club soda & savory sesame tuna sandwich with wasbi mayo and coleslaw, which is some of the best.
Reading in calm bar,
three daddies three crying babes
asleep they nurse beers
Reading in calm bar,
three daddies three crying babes
asleep they nurse beers
January 7, 2015
Issa had a rough life. Maybe that explains the touch of bitterness in so many of his poems. Quite a few of them are not particularly serene, but it's the complexity and moodiness that make them stand out.
Best:
From that woman
on the beach, dusk pours out
across ebbing tides
Best:
From that woman
on the beach, dusk pours out
across ebbing tides
December 10, 2008
This classic is a gem. I've come back to this book several times, mostly recently with my boys. It turned out that they already knew several of the poems, recognizing them in the English even though they had learned them in the Japanese!
July 4, 2012
لمن لا يعرف الهايكو، هو شعر ياباني بسيط التركيب عميق المعنى يخلو من الزخرف والتأنق. يقوم شاعر الهايكو عن طريق ألفاظ بسيطة بوصف حدث أو منظر ما بعفوية ودون تكلف، تماما كما يفعل الطفل الصغير.
تتكون قصيدة الهايكو الواحدة من بيت واحد فقط، ويتشكل من سبعة عشر مقطعا صوتياً (5-7-5). وهذا مثال لقصيدة هايكو:ـ
"ما ظننتها زهرة ساقطة
ترفرف عائدة ًإلى الغصن
كانت فراشة"
*ياسودا
الكتاب كان تجربة جميلة مع الشاعر كوباياشي إيسا.
تتكون قصيدة الهايكو الواحدة من بيت واحد فقط، ويتشكل من سبعة عشر مقطعا صوتياً (5-7-5). وهذا مثال لقصيدة هايكو:ـ
"ما ظننتها زهرة ساقطة
ترفرف عائدة ًإلى الغصن
كانت فراشة"
*ياسودا
الكتاب كان تجربة جميلة مع الشاعر كوباياشي إيسا.
June 12, 2019
That was beautiful. Specially chapter eight from The Spring of My Life, it almost made me cry. I read this before going to bed so maybe I’ll dream of a chestnut tree buried under the snow.
January 5, 2010
Honestly one of the best Haibun I've ever read. There's the mixture of comedic elements with serious emotion. It's a book I recommend for everyone to read.
July 26, 2020
"En aroma de orquídeas
va incesando sus alas
la mariposa."
va incesando sus alas
la mariposa."
February 23, 2022
'The Spring of My Life' is one of the best and most unique approaches to memoir I've ever encountered. And if you like Issa you owe it to yourself to investigate both the collection and the additional selected works within. It both lends much needed context and situating to the many familiar, oft-quoted haiku of his and speaks to their author's motivations, intentions and frame of mind while composing them. Furthermore many of the most interesting components within prove to be from the more curious and abstruse examples, which drip with mystery and perhaps significant personal meaning and specificity the broader ones anthologized most frequently can sometimes be lacking. Indeed, it’s also quite intriguing to note how often Issa violates many of the commonly accepted precepts of haiku to great effect, spurring one to revisit the value of and necessity to do a number of things which are too often blindly accepted and taken for granted. If you enjoy reading haiku and senryu, and especially if you attempt writing them yourself, this is an essential prerequisite addition to your home collection and education.
March 14, 2022
Kobayashi Issa (1763–1827), along with Bashō and Buson, is considered one of the three greatest haiku poets of Japan, known for his attention to poignant detail and playful sense of humor. The Spring of My Life, is an autobiographical sketch of linked prose and haiku in the tradition of Bashō’s celebrated Narrow Road to the Interior.
Read
January 26, 2022Perro dormido
es su leve corona
la hoja de un árbol
es su leve corona
la hoja de un árbol
Read
September 15, 2023Rather melancholy, and contemplative... life at old age on a solitary road
April 17, 2016
Issa is my favorite of the three great Japanese haiku poets (Basho, Buson, and Issa). He has a sense of humor and an earthy humanism that are really appealing to me. My favorite Issa haiku, translated by Robert Hass, is:
The man pulling radishes
pointed my way with a radish
I once had a kindred experience where the man selling cabbages counted my change out of a cabbage leaf.
I read this book sort-of in relation to my recent trip to Japan, although I didn't actually read it until I was back. It is a "haibun," a combination of travelogue and haiku similar to Basho's "Narrow Road to the Far North."
The main thing I realized in reading this book was how great Hass's translations are (he is not the translator of this book). It was through his translations that I really fell for Issa. I suspect that Hass, a great poet himself, takes a great deal of liberty in communicating the spirit of Issa's poems without too much concern for the literal content. The translations don't seem bad, but they don't have the pop that Hass's have for the most part. Here is a comparison example, again with one of my favorites from reading Hass's versions.
Hass:
New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
Hamill:
New Year greeting time:
I feel about average,
welcoming my spring.
The key funny line "I feel about average" is translated identically in each, but Hass's has great comedic timing. The "aboutness" of the poem is perfectly evident in Hass, not really in Hamill. "Welcoming my spring" is kind of an abstract notion that I don't really feel fits well, at least in modern English.
Even so, this book was enjoyable. It's much more disjointed than "The Narrow Road to the Far North"--Issa seems more inclined just to drop in haiku without really connecting them to the narrative. My favorite find, which unfortunately I can't quote directly because I already returned the book to the library and I can't turn it up on the internet, is what may be the first written record of mansplaining. Something like:
A man watching the eclipse
tells a woman all about the eclipse.
The man pulling radishes
pointed my way with a radish
I once had a kindred experience where the man selling cabbages counted my change out of a cabbage leaf.
I read this book sort-of in relation to my recent trip to Japan, although I didn't actually read it until I was back. It is a "haibun," a combination of travelogue and haiku similar to Basho's "Narrow Road to the Far North."
The main thing I realized in reading this book was how great Hass's translations are (he is not the translator of this book). It was through his translations that I really fell for Issa. I suspect that Hass, a great poet himself, takes a great deal of liberty in communicating the spirit of Issa's poems without too much concern for the literal content. The translations don't seem bad, but they don't have the pop that Hass's have for the most part. Here is a comparison example, again with one of my favorites from reading Hass's versions.
Hass:
New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
Hamill:
New Year greeting time:
I feel about average,
welcoming my spring.
The key funny line "I feel about average" is translated identically in each, but Hass's has great comedic timing. The "aboutness" of the poem is perfectly evident in Hass, not really in Hamill. "Welcoming my spring" is kind of an abstract notion that I don't really feel fits well, at least in modern English.
Even so, this book was enjoyable. It's much more disjointed than "The Narrow Road to the Far North"--Issa seems more inclined just to drop in haiku without really connecting them to the narrative. My favorite find, which unfortunately I can't quote directly because I already returned the book to the library and I can't turn it up on the internet, is what may be the first written record of mansplaining. Something like:
A man watching the eclipse
tells a woman all about the eclipse.
May 14, 2018
My second time through this profound and poignant volume, a mix of Issa's prose and poetry. The brief glimpse of his young daughter before her tragic death is heartbreaking. But Issa was such a strong practitioner that he was able to grieve and yet let it fuel his practice. His poetry is some of the best I've ever read, mixing art and spiritual realization in timeless haiku, inspired by nature and the fragility of life and beauty. A comfort in these troubled days.
January 17, 2020
Issa remains my alltime favourite haiku poet. He may not be as brilliant as Basho or as stylish as Shiki, but his haiku's are full of such intense humanity, humour and honesty that they surpass all other masters of the genre in the sheer joy one can get from reading them.
“Where there are humans,
You'll find flies,
And Buddhas.”
“Where there are humans,
You'll find flies,
And Buddhas.”
May 7, 2018
Mondo di rugiada
è un mondo di rugiada
eppure... eppure...
La potenza degli haikai di Issa è tutta racchiusa in questi toccanti versi, scritti nel dolore per la morte della piccola figlia.
Poesia pittorica, capace di evocare immagini di un mondo lontano, eppur così vicino.
è un mondo di rugiada
eppure... eppure...
La potenza degli haikai di Issa è tutta racchiusa in questi toccanti versi, scritti nel dolore per la morte della piccola figlia.
Poesia pittorica, capace di evocare immagini di un mondo lontano, eppur così vicino.
March 15, 2021
Issa ci fa vedere il mondo con occhi dolci. Allo stesso tempo, la sua visione non è idealizzata o ingenua. Il suo è un canto di un mondo vero, in cui tutti si possono ritrovare. Lui non annacqua le tragedie della vita: la morte di sua figlia è la morte di tutti.
March 20, 2014
Such simplicity and compassion. To be reminded that the world is full of suffering and life is transient. But it is beautiful.
September 16, 2011
Decent, but inferior translation.
October 9, 2020
"Aun el mono que porta
a su cría, señala
a la luciérnaga."
KI
a su cría, señala
a la luciérnaga."
KI
Read
March 29, 2014review pending
Read
May 3, 2024Pretending wisdom,
a man tells a woman all
about the eclipse
Good example of the tone that I really loved in this. The actual Spring of My Life text, a travelogue with some haiku he wrote along the way is a great read and window into Issa's life, but the selected haiku that finishes up the book is just endlessly endearing. Subject matters range from poopoo and peepee jokes, talking to animals, apologizing to living things, general Zen musings, and a healthy sense of sarcasm and selflessness. Really loved everything about this, and imagine I'll be reading it many more times in the future. Some favs:
Passing high above
our village, migrating birds cry,
"Nobody needs you!"
Thus spring begins, old
stupidities repeated,
new errors invented
A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle
In the midst of this world
we stroll along the roof of hell
gawking at flowers
While the street-corner
priest continues to blather---
ah!---tranquility
A world of trials,
and if the cherry blossoms,
it simply blossoms
And maybe most fascinating is the final haiku Issa wrote right before dying, a real OG WTF series finale of an ending to his life and work, inspiring multiple interpretations on what he could've meant:
From birthing's washbowl
to the washbowl of the dead----
blathering nonsense!
a man tells a woman all
about the eclipse
Good example of the tone that I really loved in this. The actual Spring of My Life text, a travelogue with some haiku he wrote along the way is a great read and window into Issa's life, but the selected haiku that finishes up the book is just endlessly endearing. Subject matters range from poopoo and peepee jokes, talking to animals, apologizing to living things, general Zen musings, and a healthy sense of sarcasm and selflessness. Really loved everything about this, and imagine I'll be reading it many more times in the future. Some favs:
Passing high above
our village, migrating birds cry,
"Nobody needs you!"
Thus spring begins, old
stupidities repeated,
new errors invented
A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle
In the midst of this world
we stroll along the roof of hell
gawking at flowers
While the street-corner
priest continues to blather---
ah!---tranquility
A world of trials,
and if the cherry blossoms,
it simply blossoms
And maybe most fascinating is the final haiku Issa wrote right before dying, a real OG WTF series finale of an ending to his life and work, inspiring multiple interpretations on what he could've meant:
From birthing's washbowl
to the washbowl of the dead----
blathering nonsense!
January 3, 2024
Countless tea houses
and blossoming cherries all
flower overnight
Summer’s first melon
lies firmly hugged to the breast
of a sleeping child
Where will you wander
in your straw hat once this village
rice is planted?
(Expressing sympathy for a woman recently widowed and who must now make do for herself.)
Mosquito larvae
are idle—like me today,
like me tomorrow
Searching all this world,
there is no perfect dewdrop
even on the lotus
Even prickly shrubs
will do—if you feel a breeze
pass gently through
When the mosquito
in cherry grove bit me,
I cursed even the blooms
Tearfully, the child
begs me to pick the full moon
from the evening sky
Without knowing love
for one’s children, there’s no truth
in cherry blossoms
The human father
scared away the crow for the
sparrow’s children
(By Onitsura)
I must be crazy
not to be crazy in this
crazy spring nightmare
(Raizan, after the death of his child.)
Smiling serenely,
the Buddha gently points to
a little stinkworm
The red flower
you always wanted to pick—
now this autumn wind
(Issa, upon visiting his daughter's grave.)
The nature of man:
the moon gazers vanish
more quickly than the moon
What’s said of snowmen
doesn’t last any longer
than the snowmen
and blossoming cherries all
flower overnight
Summer’s first melon
lies firmly hugged to the breast
of a sleeping child
Where will you wander
in your straw hat once this village
rice is planted?
(Expressing sympathy for a woman recently widowed and who must now make do for herself.)
Mosquito larvae
are idle—like me today,
like me tomorrow
Searching all this world,
there is no perfect dewdrop
even on the lotus
Even prickly shrubs
will do—if you feel a breeze
pass gently through
When the mosquito
in cherry grove bit me,
I cursed even the blooms
Tearfully, the child
begs me to pick the full moon
from the evening sky
Without knowing love
for one’s children, there’s no truth
in cherry blossoms
The human father
scared away the crow for the
sparrow’s children
(By Onitsura)
I must be crazy
not to be crazy in this
crazy spring nightmare
(Raizan, after the death of his child.)
Smiling serenely,
the Buddha gently points to
a little stinkworm
The red flower
you always wanted to pick—
now this autumn wind
(Issa, upon visiting his daughter's grave.)
The nature of man:
the moon gazers vanish
more quickly than the moon
What’s said of snowmen
doesn’t last any longer
than the snowmen
January 2, 2025
Además de 160 haikus que abarcan toda su obra, “La primavera de mi vida” es uno de los pocos libros de Issa Kobayashi que pueden conseguirse completos fuera de Japón y traducidos al inglés. Esta obra, suerte de diario y antología entrelazada con haiku y haibun, nos acerca más a la idea que los haijines (al menos hasta la llegada de Masaoka Shiki) tenían en mente para dar a conocer sus trabajos.
Hay momentos cumbre aquí que son difíciles de conseguir y apreciar en otra parte, por ejemplo, todo lo que Issa dedica a la muerte de su hija es desgarrador y a la vez bello. Dudo que un padre haya escrito nunca cosas más honestas, humanas y dolorosas ante semejante situación. Esa parte en especial me pareció única y, por sí sola, valió toda la experiencia lectora de este libro.
Además, con la excelente introducción de Sam Hill y las ilustraciones de Kaji Aso, podemos dar su justa medida a esta poesía vibrante, sorpresiva y cargada de amor por la naturaleza que este monje budista de principios del s. XIX nos legó y que, tristemente, es difícil allegarse por otra parte.
Hay momentos cumbre aquí que son difíciles de conseguir y apreciar en otra parte, por ejemplo, todo lo que Issa dedica a la muerte de su hija es desgarrador y a la vez bello. Dudo que un padre haya escrito nunca cosas más honestas, humanas y dolorosas ante semejante situación. Esa parte en especial me pareció única y, por sí sola, valió toda la experiencia lectora de este libro.
Además, con la excelente introducción de Sam Hill y las ilustraciones de Kaji Aso, podemos dar su justa medida a esta poesía vibrante, sorpresiva y cargada de amor por la naturaleza que este monje budista de principios del s. XIX nos legó y que, tristemente, es difícil allegarse por otra parte.
April 1, 2026
Surprisingly beautiful work. Here I found beauty in haiku I had not once seen before, of course, since my experience with haiku as a whole has been with sparse poems, some of which were actually western haikus (Bad in their language as poem, and in form as a haiku). Issa's prose is also abounding in poetic imagery. The imagery here is, of course, Buddhist, but of a kind specific to Japan, where the impermanence and suffering took on a depressing tone even among monks.
Not all haiku here are Issa's, however they might not be as the "original", as suggests an excerpt in which he warns that a specific tanka was as he remembered.
Hamill's translation is sometimes too much. The last poem in the Selected Haiku is a good example. "From basin to basin" becomes "from Birthing's washbowl/ to the washbowl of the dead". He seems to be translating it as such because this is believed to be one of Issa's last poems, however, with my weak, but I suppose, here, sufficient for a haiku this short japanese, the last line which he interprets as being blathering nonsense, the chaos of Samsara, implying an agent to an action is actually just the word 珍紛漢 (chinpunkan), which might be read as Babble, but also gibberish. Hamill explicitely tells us about the orality of haiku, and so I'm inclined to think of this as a dismissal of the whole poem, contrary to the clearly forced image of death included by basically rewriting the poem.
I'd have liked that the haiku present in the actual text also had its own japanese transcription, since I can't find online copies of the original text, and Hamill's translation is sometimes adding more words. A comparison is essential, when possible, to the reading of poems.
Not all haiku here are Issa's, however they might not be as the "original", as suggests an excerpt in which he warns that a specific tanka was as he remembered.
Hamill's translation is sometimes too much. The last poem in the Selected Haiku is a good example. "From basin to basin" becomes "from Birthing's washbowl/ to the washbowl of the dead". He seems to be translating it as such because this is believed to be one of Issa's last poems, however, with my weak, but I suppose, here, sufficient for a haiku this short japanese, the last line which he interprets as being blathering nonsense, the chaos of Samsara, implying an agent to an action is actually just the word 珍紛漢 (chinpunkan), which might be read as Babble, but also gibberish. Hamill explicitely tells us about the orality of haiku, and so I'm inclined to think of this as a dismissal of the whole poem, contrary to the clearly forced image of death included by basically rewriting the poem.
I'd have liked that the haiku present in the actual text also had its own japanese transcription, since I can't find online copies of the original text, and Hamill's translation is sometimes adding more words. A comparison is essential, when possible, to the reading of poems.
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