Carpe Diem #1158 Kashiwabara, birth-place of Kobayashi Issa

!!! Sorry for being late with publishing, there were a few technical problems !!!!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First this: Maybe you remember the episode about the results of our "autumn" kukai (HERE) In that episode I invited you to create haiku themed on Cherry Blossom for our next kukai. This kukai runs until March 4th 10.00 PM (CET). You can still submit your haiku (only haiku and a maximum of three (3) haiku) to our email-address: carpediemhaikukai@gmail.com Please write "kukai cherry blossom" in the subject-line.

Second: As you have noticed earlier this week I published a survey for our fifth CDHK anniversary to get some insight in our haiku family members. (HERE)

Third: Earlier this week I told you that I will change a few things, just for my own health, my own time. These changes are not that big, but I will share the changes here:

1. Starting March 2017: I will only publish on weekdays.
2. I will bring Universal Jane and Namasté alternating eachother weekly on Fridays.
3. (NEW) To give you the change to be inspired in the weekend I will bring back the special feature "Time Glass", also on Fridays. The former idea was to respond within 24 hours, but because of the weekend inspiration I have changed that into 72 hours (three days).

Kashiwabara, Shinano Province, Nagano Prefecture

Kobayashi Issa (1763 – 1828) was a Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest of the Jōdo Shinshū sect known for his haiku poems and journals. He is better known as simply Issa, a pen name meaning Cup-of-tea. He is regarded as one of the five haiku masters in Japan, along with Bashō, Buson, Chiyo-Ni and Shiki — "the Big Five."

Issa was born and registered as Kobayashi Nobuyuki, with a childhood name of Kobayashi Yatarō, the first son of a farmer family of Kashiwabara, now part of Shinano-machi, Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture).

As a big fire swept the post station of Kashiwabara on July 24, 1827, according to the Western calendar. Issa lost his house and had to live in his storehouse, which is still kept in the town. Issa died on November 19, 1828, in his native village.

Issa's storehouse where he lived in the last years of his life

As I was preparing this episode I discovered that Issa was also a painter. This I didn’t know about him.

Kashiwabara, Shinano Province (nowadays Nagano Prefecture) was a long stretched, so called, poststation. Issa lived close to the poststation that burned down in 1827. He lost his house to that fire and had to go living in his storehouse.

Kashiwabara is one of the most attractive places to go skiing. I wonder if all the tourists are aware of the history that Issa, one of the best haiku poets ever, lived in this mountain village.

One of Issa's drawings (including a haiku):

niwa no chô ko ga haeba tobi haeba tobu

garden butterfly
as the baby crawls, it flies―
crawls close, flutters on

(c) Issa

Issa wrote a lot of haiku, more than 20.000. His body of work is 20 times bigger than that of the most famous haiku poet (and my haiku master) Matsuo Basho, who wrote around 1000 haiku.

The region were Issa lived is now one of the most beloved places to go on holiday every season. That's not strange, because the region around Kashiwabara is really wonderful as you can see on the images I have used in this episode.

Kashiwabara, birth-place of Issa, is a wonderful place to be.

To conclude this episode of Carpe Diem, in which we visited the birth place of Kobayashi Issa, I have a few nice haiku written by Issa about the Shinano Mountains.

Shinano's deep wooded mountains
even in Fifth Month...
cherry blossoms

sleeping side by side
Shinano's mountains too...
evening snow

deep wooded mountains--
home-grown in Shinano
glorious blossoms

Eighth Month--
a rainy night, pre-harvest moon
in the mountains of Shinano

(c) Kobayashi Issa (Tr. David G. Lanoue)

Grave of Issa in Kashiwabara

 I just had to create a few haiku myself inspired on this episode:

mountain peaks
covered in all colors of the rainbow
departing summer

I am a dreamer
wandering through Kashiwabara
I feel like Issa

(c) Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 24th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our next episode about the birthplace of Chiyo-Ni later on.