Fandom High School

The weather, it would seem, continued to be rather cooperative, so it looked like another late morning in the park talking about poetry! Or possibly just napping. Napping was the haiku of the slumbeirng world.

...Shunsui needed to remember that, that was actually a pretty good line that he was absolutely using in a poem later on.

Anyway! When his tiny little class was gathered in the usual spot, he gave them his usual sleepy smile and began:

"Harusame ni ôakubi suru bijin kana...

Spring rain
A pretty girl
yawns.

"While this particular poem does not follow the syllabic beats one comes to expect out of a traditional haiku, there is no denying that this little snippet from Kobayashi Issa, one of my favorites of the great Japanese haikuists, is still very much in the same spirit ♥. Issa, who chose his pen name because it loosely translated into 'A Single Cup of Tea,' and thus the reason why we are tea-exclusive in our beverage selection today, did a whole series of poems starting with the concept of spring rain and the activities that could occur therein, from this lovely little portrait of a sleepy young woman to a wife with coins in her sleeves, presumably on the way to market, to a child teaching a cat to dance and a flock of ducks being terribly noisy because they had yet to be fed ♥. He tended to use a wry sense of humor in the format's attention to details, as well as simplicity. He grew up in a farming family and was sent to Tokyo to pursue his writing, married three times, was a Buddhist monk and artist," with a nod of deference to Astrid-chan, "and has written over 20,000 poems, with a popularity that puts him right on par with Bashō from last week ♥. A few highlights:

"don't kill that fly
it is making a prayer to you
by rubbing its hands and feet

ducks bobbing on water—
are they also, tonight
hoping to get lucky

having slept
the cat gets up yawns, goes out
to make love

Was it any surprise why Shunsui might have been partial to choosing those last two? But he grinned a little as he added, "And now, ​a personal favorite:

Writing shit about new snow
for the rich
is not art.

"Now, of course," he continued with a faint chuckle, "it was not all fun and games and humor to Issa-san, either. Take, for example, the following poem

"This dewdrop world --
Is a dewdrop world,
And yet, and yet . . .

"...written in response to the death of his first born child when she was but two and a half years old. Whether dealing in the simple pleasures that bring life or reflecting on the sad inevitability of death, his wit and brevity encompassed exactly the appeal in the art of the haiku and established his footing as one of the greats.

"Now, of course, we can discuss some of the works of Koayashi Issa, as we've discussed or perhaps if you know a few, or I can offer a few more, and then, I would like us to perhaps use Issa-san's sense of humor in our own work today as we try to create our own. How's that sound, ducklings, mmmm ♥?"