New years day by kobayashi issa influence

Haiku is my favorite form of poetry.

I admit it’s partly because they’re short.

While one might read Issa's hokku as merely wishful fantasy—to partake of the pleasures of the New Year's season, from tasty rice cakes to bright-colored kites.

While one might read Issa's hokku as merely wishful fantasy—to partake of the pleasures of the New Year's season, from tasty rice cakes to bright-colored kites.

Thoughts And Ideas · Ross.

In , for example, Issa employed a humorous, ironic, and philosophically suggestive reversal of expectations in a famous poem about New Year's Day, the.

Issa's “new year's day”: The light of a candle / Is enough to illuminate the whole house / Spring twilight.

Issa makes fun of himself, showing himself to be impatient and unwilling to open his heart and absorb the beauty of the moon.

But, it’s mostly because of the poets’ ability to shake up my mind, which opens new possibilities in my thinking. My favorite translations are by Robert Hass in his book The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa.

With 2021 in mind, I looked through the book and found four haiku with the new year as their themes. Here they are, along with commentary from me.

Issa flaunts his laziness, even on the most auspicious day of the year.

I don’t expect all of us to interpret the poems the same way, and that’s fine.

From Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

Year after year

on the monkey’s face

a monkey’s face.

I laughed out loud when I first read this haiku.

Then that laughter turned sour as I thought of how, so far, 2021 isn’t much different than 2020. I found myself rewording the poem to read: “Year after year, the face of the pandemic is the face of the pandemic.”

That made me feel s