Category Archives: Issa (Kobayashi)

Three haiku by Kobayashi Issa

21 Tuesday Dec 2010

Posted by in 1800s, Issa (Kobayashi), Japanese, Poetry

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[from] The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku
by Kobayashi Isaa
English translation by Sam Hamill

So much money made
by clever temple priests
using peonies

Kane moke
jozu na tera no
botan kana


Once snows have melted,
the village soon overflows
with friendly children

Yuki tokete
mura ippai no
kodomo kana


All around my house,
pond frogs, from the beginning,
sang about old age

Waga io ya
kawazu shote kara
oi wo naku

[The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku by Kobayashi Issa, translated by Sam Hamill, published in 1997 by Shambhala Publications, Inc.  Visit the publisher at http://www.shambhala.com.]

Robert Hass reads translations of haiku by Kobayashi Issa

05 Monday Jul 2010

Posted by in 2000s, American, Hass (Robert), Issa (Kobayashi), Japanese, Video, Writing

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl8pRjLSFto

Video courtesy of PoetryEverywherePTV

Robert Haas reads his translations of selected haiku by Kobayashi Issa as part of the Poetry Everywhere project airing on public television. Produced by David Grubin Productions and WGBH Boston, in association with the Poetry Foundation. Filmed at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. For more information, visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/.