Kobayashi Issa, Japan's most beloved haiku poet is put under a microscope by Anita Virgil in order to distinguish and delineate three basic directions his poems take.
Read the complete essay, “Issa: The Uses of Adversity” (PDF 197kb)
by Anita Virgil
Intro haiku:
“My Spring?
A single bamboo –
A willow twig. ”
Graphic Design/Collage: Donna Beaver & Alan Pizzarelli
Note: Background Woodblock painting by Utagawa, Kuniyoshi, 1798-1861 (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division); Issa portrait drawn by Muramatsu Shunpo 1772-1858 (Public Domain Works).