Inch by Inch: 45 Haiku by Issa

by Issa, Nanao Sakaki (Translator)

Originally published in 1985 in a limited edition, this selection of haiku by Issa, the great nineteenth-century Japanese poet, is translated by Nanao Sakaki, the legendary contemporary Japanese poet. Widely regarded as one of the four haiku masters of Japan, Issa is much loved for his compassion and humorous sense of equality with the natural world. Each poem is rendered in Sakaki's handwriting in both English and Kanji and includes Romanji text as well. The translations are among the freshest and most concise renditions of Issa's haiku. Also included is an interview with Sakaki about the life, wanderings, and work of Issa as well as the ongoing tradition embodied by his poems. Beautifully designed, this book is a treasure for admirers both of Issa and of Nanao Sakaki.

Genres: Poetry, Japanese Literature, Japan

73 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1999

Reviews

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

How lovely
through the torn paper window
—the Milky Way

Born as Kobayashi Nobuyuki in 1763, in today’s Nagano Prefecture, the poet later known as Issa got acquainted with death since his early years. Such loneliness and his love for nature were portrayed in the over 20.000 haiku he wrote. Frogs, sparrows, snails, mosquitoes, flies – all seen through his candid eyes. The compassion and frankness of childhood.

Just myself
Also, one fly
—an enormous house

Some of Issa’s work has been translated and brought to us by Nanao Sakaki (1923-2008), another Japanese poet. This particular collection includes Sakaki’s handwriting in the English and Kanji version of each poem, something I could have lived without. It made the edition look sloppy to me.

The book ends with an interview with Sakaki. When talking about the differences between Issa and Bashō, he said that the latter “is more revolutionary personality. He was born upper class samurai, very good education... If he had no education, maybe he could have been much greater poet”. According to the translator, Bashō had a powerful intellectual background whereas Issa had “nothing, no education, he learned only from his life. So that is more closer to everybody”. In that sense, the poet who once wrote the world of dew/is just the world of dew/and yet… and yet has more reality. A compassionate nature that Sakaki regards as something we are born with, and cannot be made.
Finding such a little bit of empathy is becoming more difficult with each passing day.

Inch by inch—
Little snail
Creep up and up Mt. Fuji

Feb 23; May 22, 19
* Later on my blog.
** Credit: photo via GWP

[Andrei Mocuţa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pissing pissing
Down there
an iris blooming.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bryan: It's all so beautiful, why am I so uptight?
Sakaki: Yeah, the surprisement, that is haiku.

One of my favorite Issa poems, which I'm surprised to not see in this little collection, is as follows:

the pheasant cries
as if it just noticed
a mountain

In other words, why are we so surprised at things that are so obvious? But what really is obvious? The things that are obvious to a snail or a rock may not be obvious to us, severed as we are from nature. We drive, we click around so frantically, but we accomplish nothing. I still believe Ecclesiastes is the most freeing text I've read, other than the Gospels. Nothing on this earth matters, none of our accomplishments, ambition, careful planning. God laughs at it, and we should laugh with him, if we had any sense of humor.

I'm learning that Sakaki is the perfect poet to translate Issa, because he is him. Some other reviewer on here called him "eccentric," but I think that Sakaki is totally rational; it's the reviewer who is boring. So many people are so disturbingly ok with being boring, with rushing to work late in the morning and then rushing home to fart around, watch their shows, and do fuckall. It's infuriating to watch these half humans. Earlier today, the Nietzsche audiobook I'm listening to said "The majority of people are only piecemeal and fragmentary examples of man. Only when all of these creatures are jumbled together does one whole man arise." That's how I feel, so alone out here in this field of broken pottery. The sad thing is it's not even like I'm some spontaneous, physically demanding person, but I at least make a point of going for a walk every day, looking at trees, smelling the wind, taking photographs, looking and actually seeing, not just looking to find the next street to drive down. There's a way to look without seeing, to live without living, and that's how most eyes are used, how most lives are lived.

You ever get those moments where you're driving and you suddenly realize that you're driving? You're unsure how long you've been unconsciously on auto-pilot, and the idea chills you, especially if you've been in a car accident and know how fast it can turn dangerous. It's like that when you discover haiku, or a great movie, or a new band. Everything seems new, even though nothing is never really new. So, what use are categories like "old" and "new?" None, as far as the snail or the pheasant are concerned. Oh, if only we could learn to be so simple, to have the object impermanence of a pheasant gasping at a mountain that has been there all its life. There's wisdom in them, and in us, if we'd be patient enough to stop trying to achieve it manually.

[Mirjana (Mirjana_bere) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haiku enega od štirih velikih japonskih klasikov.
Preprost, a igriv jezik. Povezava z naravo. Humor.

[Pripri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah je ne peux pas préjuger de 20 000 haikus par la petite centaine que retient ce recueil mais c'est un peu trop d'ennui pour moi... Que la vacuité remplisse le bol d'air frais d'une odeur forte mais rance, je souscris et je m'engage sur plusieurs années sans souci mais, malgré tout, quelque chose résiste. Il manque souvent ce petit éclat, cet "éclair pourfendeur" pour parler comme Naruto, qui fait que ça :

"Ce monde imparfait
mais pourtant recouvert de
cerisiers en fleurs"

ne porte pour ma pomme pas aussi loin que ça :

"Dans les fleurs de thé
ils s'amusent à cache-cache
les petits moineaux !"
(La traduction peut y être pour quelque chose)

Le champêtre et son bestiaire répété lassent et on ne sait pas trop si ce qui guide Issa c'est de la joie ou de la tristesse encore accrochée se rattrapant aux rideaux de la nature. On voudrait croire à cette empathie, prendre plaisir à lire ce dialogue de deux voisins têtus, entre l'homme Issa et ses sauterelles, ses grenouilles et ses puces.
Bien qu'il se fasse trop rare dans cette centaine de page, l'humour est là heureusement qui sauve toujours de tout et cette fois avec un sens de la scène particulièrement savoureux :

"Porte de branchages -
pour remplacer la serrure
juste un escargot !"

"Chassant une mouche
une plante en fleurs aussi
a été touchée"

"Ah ! jour de brouillard -
pour les esprits célestes
c'est l'ennui sans doute"
(juillet)

[Rick Jackofsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Issa may be my favorite poet. 45 of his best here along with a wonderful interview of translator, and poet, Nanao Sakaki who shares some words of wisdom.

Comparing Basho to Issa:
"He (Basho) was born upper class samurai, very good education, maybe too good education. If he had no education maybe he could have been much greater poet."

When asked if Issa being the son of a farmer affected his poetry:
"We think we are the slave of experience, but not so, we are free! . . . Most people think experience, experience, but it's not true! We can jump over experience."

The ant's trail
From a thunderhead
All the way to here!

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute little book. Just long enough to delve into it and enjoy. I wouldn't have minded if it had been longer, but it's a fun book. I got into haiku a few years ago, and Issa immediately became my favorite. The translator talks about why that is so for so many people even today. There's also an interview with him int he back. I enjoyed this.

[Punk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A square little paperback with 45 haiku—one per page—and an interview with the translator, but no translator notes, and I'm beginning to understand that's my favorite part of reading haiku, so this book isn't of much use to me, but it's very pretty.

Each poem is presented in kanji and English, and includes a romanization. The kanji and English are in calligraphy, though the English translation's really just in cursive. Sakaki did the calligraphy himself, and it's dark and inky and gives a personal feel to the poems, like you're reading the poet's journal. The writing is mostly legible, though there was a moment where I misread "pardon" as "hardon" and that'll really change the vibe of a poem.

Sakaki's translations feel modern and organic, with punctuation that's never jarring, and the poems he chose center Issa's soft humor, his love of insects—fleas in particular—and the earthiness of his writing. While most haiku are about nature, Issa's poems are just a bit more down to earth than Bashō's, for instance, not as lofty or metaphorical.

Here's one I liked a lot:

Who can be
a stranger
under the cherry blossoms?

And here's Sakaki's take on one of my favorites:

The daikon picker
points the way
     with his daikon

The interview in the back is casual—in a dialogue format—and seems to be among friends. Sakaki comes off a bit eccentric, but I enjoyed his perspective on the differences between the poetry of Issa and Bashō—Sakaki attributes it to class differences—and I was interested in how freely Sakaki dismisses certain poems of Issa's as being uninteresting or too sentimental. Sakaki says Issa wrote 20,000 poems and "maybe 500 I can read. Maybe 200 I love. Maybe 10 great." He's opinionated in a bossy, dismissive way, and it's fascinating to get a glimpse of the kind of prejudices and preferences a translator can have.

Charming, though not 100% legible. Three and a half stars rounded up to four.