Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) grew up in a state of poverty and
neglect. He wrote poems that are crass, playful, and full of compassion for the
unnoticed and undignified. In A Taste of Issa, David G. Lanoue
writes, “Issa is a poet who speaks to our common humanity in a way that is so
honest, so contemporary, his verses might have been written this morning. While
Basho is the most revered of the haiku poets of Old Japan, Issa is the most
loved.”