Here's an Issa haiku from Dew on the Grass: the Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa by Makoto Ueda:
this loneliness—This Issa book is going for almost a hundred dollars on amazon, so I will be featuring haiku from it occasionally in future posts.
whichever way I look
wild violetsIssa
About time for a reprint, I'd say.
best,
Don
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6 comments:
AW MAN! thanks..
you know
another neat book Nanao's (trans's of) ISSA high-coos) INCH BY INCH
45 haiku by ISSA
Nanao notes:
"Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) was born in Kashiwabara village, Shinano, Japan. His family members were middle class farmers and serious Buddhists of the Pure Land Sect. Most of the time he lived in Edo (old-time Tokyo), occasionally traveling as a vagabond poet, he lived a rather sad life.( etc)"
last I heard Nanao was (is?) in an assisted living place but that was two years ago...
looking forward to these ISSA poems...
If it's going for that much then definitely time for a reprint.
I wanna (also) suggest this "lttle" book
http://www.laalamedapress.com/img/bookcovers/inchbyinch.jpg
for inclusion in on-going
Near Perfect Books list..
Oh, do I like this haiku. Thanks for posting it. The book is $127 at Powell's, but they're out of stock. Is the book out of print - is that why it's so expensive?
that's a lot of money for one book, but if there's a poet worth paying that much for, it's definitely Issa.
Hey, Ed, thanks Inch by Inch is happily already on the list, which has grown to 170 titles.
Charles, I'm guessing it is such a small market that it might not be anytime soon, but here's hoping.
Lisa, I think the book originally retailed for about $60. The old law of supply and demand drives it up ... sigh.
Greg, I'll post the occasional poem from the book, which, not unlike Makoto Ueda's books on Basho, is a life and study.
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