LINKS

Japanese Music Midi files [French web site]

BIOGRAPHY

Kobayashi Nobuyki (Issa) was born in Kashiwabara, Shinano province, to a farming family and began writing in his childhood, which was marred by misfortune and sadness, his mother died and his father remarried resulting in torment at the hands of his step mother and step brother.

In 1777 he was dispatched to Tokyo to study the Haiku form under such masters as Sogan and Chikua. He was forced to support himself by taking menial jobs before gaining entry into the Kasushika poetry school. At the age of 28 he was to be given a teaching post at the school but lasted just a year after it became clear that his modern style of haiku did not suit the clerical confines that were expected of him.

For the next two years Kabayashi wandered the provinces of Japan where he found a patron in the form of Seibi Natsume, during this period he took the pen name (Issa). upon his return to Tokyo he was to publish his first collection Tabishui 1795 Issa was to visit most of the prominent Japanese cities of the day over the next few years, publishing the following collections to recount his travels.
Chichi No Shuen Nikki 1801
Kyowakujo 1803
Shichiban-Nikki 1810
Waga Harushu 1811.

In 1812 he returned to his native Kashiwabara and was to resume the feud with his Step family who had dishonored his father's will. He also married at this time but again misfortune struck with his four children dying in infancy, and his wife later in 1823.
During this period he gained his reputation as the leader of the Haiku form in the shinano province, with his style being open and natural his verse was read by many as being relevant to everyday life. Three collections were published during this period:

Hachiban-Nikki 1818
Oragaharu 1819 tr: The year of my life.
Kuban Nikki 1822.

Kobayashi was to marry again and was blessed with a daughter born just after his death in 1827. He was seen as a rejuvenating influence on the Haiku form and has left a legacy of over 20,000 haikus, describing nature, life in everyday terms and sympathetic vulnerability. His collections are translated and sold to this day.

Source: http://oldpoetry.com/authors/Kobayashi%20Issa　

My attempt to write Haiku rhaig201@pacbell.net

蚊ぼく好き

帰蛙蚊好む

蛙好き

Mosquitoes favor me

Frogs love mosquitoes

Frogs I favor

ISSA'S POETRY

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.

Also called KOBAYASHI YATARO, original name KOBAYASHI ISSA (b. June 15, 1763, Kashiwabara, Shinano province,Japan--d. Jan. 5, 1828, Kashiwabara), Japanese poet whose works in simple, unadorned language captured the spiritual loneliness of the common man. Out of a life of tragic adversity he created a poetry of sentimental simplicity that endeared him to the Japanese people.

Kobayashi Poems translated in other languages

Croatian

This frog has the face
for writing a song of stars -
He is a poet!

Ta žaba ima lice
Zvjezdama pisati glazbu -
Ona je pjesnik!

Source

Italian

Moon and flowers
49 years
walked invain

Luna e fiori
quarantanove anni
camminati invano.

Source

Portuguese

Do not worry, spiders
I clean the house
casually

Não se preocupem aranhas,
Eu limpo a casa
casualmente

Source

Hungarian

Russian