On New Year's Day
lucky! lucky!
a pale blue sky
As customary, the final haiku of the year is by Kobayashi Issa. I just discovered New Year's Day was the first day of spring in the old Japanese calendar, and it generally fell on February.
Among the four great masters of Japanese haiku, Issa was the most prolific: during his lifetime he wrote over 20,000 haiku, hundreds of tanka, and several haibun. If you want to find out more about this prolific author I suggest you check out this database of his haiku.
Haiku by Kobayashi Issa
Picture by Kumiko SHIMIZU
This haiku poem is part of the Naviar haiku music challenge, where artists are invited to make music in response to a weekly assigned haiku poem. Participation is free and there are no limitations in the songs’ length or genre.
You have seven days from the posting of this haiku to submit your track. For information on how to make a submission, visit the Naviar Haiku Music Challenge page.
Submission deadline: 5th January 2022