The Dumpling Field: Haiku of Issa

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), long considered among Japan's four greatest haiku poets (along with Basho, Buson and Shiki) is probably the best loved. This collection of more than 360 haiku, arranged seasonally and many rendered into English for the first time, attempts to reveal the full range of the poet's extraordinary life as if it were concentrated within a year. Issa's haiku are traditionally structured, of 17 syllables in the original, tonally unified and highly suggestive, yet they differ from those of fellow haikuists.