Kobayashi issa three spring haiku

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