TWA Poets: Kobayashi Issa

1773-1828

It's the birthday of Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa (known by Issa, meaning cup of tea) born in Kashiwabara, Japan (1763). He's one of the masters of the Japanese form of poetry called haiku, which uses 17 syllables broken into three distinct units. He spent most of his adult life traveling around Japan, writing haiku, keeping a travel diary, and visiting…