Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) is a representative haiku poet of the late Edo period. His first name was Yataro. His stage names include Kikumei, and Ungai. A native of Kashiwabara Village in Shinano Province (Shinano-cho, Nagano Prefecture), he left for Edo at the age of 15 to serve as an apprentice, where he encountered haikai and established his own style of expressing the emotions of everyday life in plain language, making full use of the vulgar and slang terms.
