Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶?

) (June 15, 1763 - January 5, 1828), was a

Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest of the Jodo Shinshu sect known for his
haiku poems and journals. He is better known as simply Issa (一茶?), a pen
name meaning Cup-of-tea[1] (lit. "one [cup of] tea"). He is regarded as one of
the four haiku masters in Japan, along with Bashō, Buson and Shiki.
Reflecting the popularity and interest in Issa as man and poet, Japanese
books on Issa outnumber those on Buson, and almost equal those on Bashō

Life
Issa was born and registered as Kobayashi Nobuyuki[1] (小林 信之), with a
childhood name of Kobayashi Yatarô (小林弥太郎), the first son of a farmer
family of Kashiwabara, now part of Shinano-machi, Shinano Province
(present-day Nagano Prefecture). Issa endured the loss of his mother, who
died when he was three. Her passing was the first of numerous difficulties
young Issa suffered. He was cared for by his grandmother, who doted on
him, but his life changed again when his father remarried five years later.
Issa's half-brother was born two years later, and when his grandmother died
when he was 14, Issa felt estranged in his own house, a lonely, moody child
who preferred to wander the fields. His attitude did not please his
stepmother, who, according to Lewis Mackenzie, was a "tough-fibred
'managing' woman of hard-working peasant stock."[3] He was sent to Edo
(present-day Tokyo) to eke out a living by his father one year later. Nothing
of the next ten years of his life is known for certain. His name was associated
with Kobayashi Chikua (小林竹阿) of the Nirokuan (二六庵) haiku school, but
their relationship is not clear. During the following years, he wandered
through Japan and fought over his inheritance with his stepmother (his father
died in 1801). After years of legal wrangles, Issa managed to secure rights to
half of the property his father left. He returned to his native village at the
age of 49[4] and soon took a wife, Kiku. After a brief period of bliss, tragedy
returned. The couple's first-born child died shortly after his birth. A daughter
died less than two-and-a-half years later, inspiring Issa to write this haiku
(translated by Lewis Mackenzie):

露の世は露の世ながらさりながら
Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara
The world of dew --
A world of dew it is indeed,
And yet, and yet . . .
A third child died in 1820, and then Kiku fell ill and died in 1823. Issa married
twice more late in his life, and through it all he produced a huge body of
work.

Issa lived in this storehouse on his last days. (Shinano, Nagano, Japan)

As a big fire swept the post station of Kashiwabara on July 24, 1827,
according to the Western Calendar, Issa lost his house and had to live in his
storehouse, which is still kept in the town. He died on January 5, 1828, in his
native village. According to the old Japanese calendar, he died on the 19th
day of Eleventh Month, Tenth Year of the Bunsei era. Since the Tenth Year of
Bunsei roughly corresponds with 1827, many sources list this as his year of
death.

[edit] Writings

He wrote over 20,000 haiku, which have won him readers up to the present
day. Though his works were popular, he suffered great monetary instability.
Despite a multitude of personal trials, his poetry reflects a childlike
simplicity, making liberal use of local dialects and conversational phrases.
His works also include haibun (passages of prose with integrated haiku) such
as Oraga Haru (おらが春 "My Spring") and Shichiban Nikki (七番日記 "Number
Seven Journal"), and he collaborated on more than 250 renku (collaborative
linked verse).[5]

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!

Another, translated by D.T. Suzuki, was written during a period of Issa's life
when he was penniless and deep in debt. It reads:

Trusting the Buddha (Amida), good and bad,

I bid farewell
To the departing year.
Another, translated by Peter Beilenson with Harry Behn, reads:

Everything I touch
with tenderness, alas,
pricks like a bramble.