I shared Lanoue's wonderful Issa website in yesterday's post, and today I decided to do some exploring in the Internet Archive to see what Issa books I could find. (Issa is my favorite of the classical Japanese haiku poets.)

I found lots of haiku anthologies that feature Issa (I'll share links to those books in another post), but there were also 10 just about Issa, and those are the books I've listed below in order by date of publication.

Note: The Archive is not a congenial space for reading a whole book, but it's a great place to discover books and then to decide which physical books you might want to borrow from your local library or perhaps to find used (bookfinder.com is how I do that!).

So, here are the Issa books you can borrow at the Archive (just one borrower at a time; that's how "controlled digital lending" works):

Of This World: A Poet's Life in Poetry by Richard Lewis (black-and-white photographs by Helen Buttfield). 104 pages. 1968. The photographs are a great feature of this book, especially the photographs of the living animals: so vivid, and animals were such an important part of Issa's world.

A Few Flies and I: Haiku selected by Jean Merrill and Ronni Solbert (illustrations by Ronni Solbert). 104 pages. 1969. The poems are in translations by R. H. Blyth and by Yuasa Nobuyuki. You can find out more about R. H. Blyth here. The illustrations are lovely!

Wind in My Hand by Hanako Fukuda (illustrations by Lydia Cooley). 70 pages. 1970. Although this isn't a children's picture book (like Cool Melons below), it is a book for "young readers," vividly telling Issa's life story (in part by Issa himself) along with his poetry plus some lovely illustrations.

The Autumn Wind: A Selection From the Poems of Issa translated by Lewis Mackenzie. 132 pages. 1984. The 250 poems have romanization alongside the translation, and some of the poems have detailed notes providing helpful biographical and cultural context. Here's how that looks:

The Dumpling Field: Haiku of Issa translated by Lucien Stryk. 48 pages. 1991. This book contains 366 poems: one for each day of the year (even a Leap Year), and the poems are organized by seasons. There are notes in the back, along with a very helpful introduction.

Ten Poems translated by Robert Bly (illustrations by Arthur Okamura). 40 pages. 1992. There are indeed just ten poems here, but each one has a lovely illustration; be sure to view this one using the 2-page view to see the illustration and the poem side by side. And yes, this is that Robert Bly.

The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku translated by Sam Hamill (illustrations by Kaji Aso). 216 pages. 1997. "The Spring of My Life" is one of Issa's haibun, a memoir in prose with interspersed haiku. This book is a translation of Issa's prose and his poetry, and there are also some lovely illustrations.

Cool Melons, Turn to Frogs! The Life and Poems of Issa by Matthew Gollub (illustrations by Kazuko Stone). 48 pages. 1998. This is a lovely children's book that tells the story of Issa's life in very simple terms, accompanied by haiku. Here's what it looks like, and be sure to read the note at the back of the book about the creation process the author and illustrator used:

Inch by Inch translated by Nanao Sakaki. 84 pages. 1999. Each poem includes both the Japanese writing and the romanization if you want a sense of how the poem might sound in Japanese. Here's the title poem:

Today and Today illustrated by G. Brian Karas. 40 pages. 2007. This is a children's book about the day-to-day life of a family over the four seasons of a year, with selected poems of Issa. You'll also want to look at this one with 2-page view.