The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku by Kobayashi Issa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
These haiku are very beautiful. Many of them piercingly so. A few are deeply strange. Let me quote:
Passing high above
our village, migrating birds cry,
“Nobody needs you!”
This is by somebody named Hakuhi. I haven’t been able to find out any more about him or her.
This may be one of my favorite haiku ever.
What I’m saying is, if you’re in it for sublime melancholy — straight, uncut wabi-sabi — then get on the Kobayashi Issa train.