I is for Issa

Wiki Commons

For today's post I went browsing the Poetry Foundation website and came across this tiny gem. The poet is question is Kobayashi Issa (Issa, his pen name, apparently meaning most beautifully "cup of tea") who lived from 1763 to 1828. It says something about how wonderfully timeless some formal structures are in poetry, that within the confines of the haiku an idea can be expressed, and it does not feel in any way old fashioned. I think that the simplicity of haiku is deceptive, and to do them well is a refined art. 


On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.


(Linking back to the A to Z Challenge)