Coming to Play with Kobayashi Issa, Robert Hass and Beth Levin

Goes out come back the love life of my cat.

Even with insect some can sing some can’t

  • Kobayashi Issa (小林 一茶 born on June 15, 1763)

    It’s the birthday of Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa born in Kashiwabara, Japan (1763). He’s one of the masters of the Japanese form of poetry called haiku, which uses 17 Japanese characters broken into three distinct units. He spent most of his adult life traveling around Japan, writing haiku, keeping a travel diary, and visiting shrines and temples across the country. By the end of his life, he had written more than 20,000 haiku celebrating the small wonders of everyday life.

    (via Facebook Beth Levin)

    Friends of Beth Levin enjoy her frequent posting of haikus by Issa.
    For Issa’s birthday, two haikus hand picked by Beth Levin

    1)

    Looking at me the pheasant on tiptoe on tiptoe ~ Issa {year unknown}

    2)

    Massaging my back with the pine tree’s gnarl… evening cool 1815 .松瘤で肩たたきつつ夕涼 matsu kobu de kata tataki tsutsu yûsuzumi “Massage” here is hard, Japanese-style pounding (tataki).

    P.S. Happy birthday, Issa!!! He was born in the little village of Kashiwabara in the mountains of Japan’s Shinano Province on the fifth day of Fifth Month, 1763: June 15 on the Western calendar

  • Beth Levin Piano (homepage)

    Beth Levin plays Beethoven here. (youtube)

  • 1bethIssa

  • (Calligraphy by Issa)

    Haiku Issa

    Come and play,
    little orphan sparrow-
    play with me!
    The poem was probably written years later in reflection on the incident, but Issa displayed enough literary ability in his youth to attract the attention of the proprietor of the lord’s residence, a man skilled in calligraphy and haiku poetry, who believed that Issa would be a good companion for his own son. He invited Issa to attend a school he operated in partnership with a scholar in Chinese studies who was also a haiku poet. Issa could attend the school only at night and on holidays-sometimes carrying his stepbrother on his back-when he was not compelled to assist with farm chores, but this did not prevent him from cultivating his literary inclinations.

  • Google Kobayashi Issa (4 haikus with illustrations here)

  • One of Issa’s haiku, as translated by R.H. Blyth, appears in J. D. Salinger’s 1961 novel, Franny and Zooey:
    O snail
    Climb Mount Fuji,
    But slowly, slowly! (via wiki)

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