ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF HAIKU POETS

*Many events in our historical timeline are based on oral histories and even rumors as well as primary sources. 

Consequently our heritage is always in flux based on the research of the seven interns we’ve assigned to compiling our historical legacy. 

Members are encouraged to submit (with notation) any supplementary research they may have.

1828: Kobayashi Issa has a stroke and dies in the winter. Five months later, his daughter, Yata, is born. She is the only child of Issa's that survives into adulthood. (He had four children from his first wife —all of whom died in infancy — with his wife dying herself in 1823. His second wife left him after a few weeks. He married his third wife in 1826.)

1851: A wayward son of the wealthy Van Rensselaer family is born. The Van Rensselaers own the Manor of Rensselaerwyck and hold the surrounding lands from Albany to Rensselaerville.

1869: According to local oral histories, the wayward Van Rensselaer son travels to Shinano Province in Japan for a drastic change in scenery. Here, he meets Yata's daughter, Issa's granddaughter. She introduces him to the art of haiku and they fall in love.

1882: Together, the wayward Van Rensselaer son and Yata's daughter found the International Society of Haiku Poets, vowing to dedicate their lives to letting spare moments pierce through the numbness and pain of monotony. It becomes their shared, preferred language and primary form of connection.

1896: Yata's daughter passes away and, according to references to lost diaries, the wayward Van Rensselaer son makes the trek back to the States, and settles in Rensselaerville. With his guidance, the Rensselaerville Library becomes the U.S. headquarters of the International Society of Haiku Poets.

1942: After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President FDR signs Executive Order 9066, granting the military permission to exclude "any or all persons" considered to be a threat from designated "military areas." The order justifies the forced removal and internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans. 

Amid rising widespread anti-Asian sentiments, it is believed that the original International Society of Haiku Poets sign was stored for safekeeping, wrapped in silk and placed in the library attic. There is said to be one photograph of the original sign, but it was devastatingly destroyed in a flood.

Sometime in the late 1950s: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady are rumored to visit the Rensselaerville Library in search for an office space, but are quickly turned away by the librarian who said they "reeked of marijuana."

2014: An anonymous resident on Pond Hill Road uncovers the original, badly rusted, and exposed International Society of Haiku Poets sign in their basement. Upon picking up the sign — or the remnants remaining — it immediately disintegrates, leaving a single "H" intact. 

They begin a solitary, intensive effort to discover the society's secrets, traveling around the world to connect with long-lost members and their descendants. 

2020: The attic above the Rensselaerville Library reopens. 

2023: Ballots are sent to over 5,000 confidential members around the world to elect a new board of directors. Extensive attempts to trace the lineage of the wayward Van Rensselaer son and Kobayashi Issa's granddaughter come up empty. 

Groundskeeper Barry Kuhar suggests the society's sign should be remade and mounted onto the library's facade.

2024: A new replica of the International Society of Haiku Poets sign is unveiled. Above the library is the new office where haiku artists from around the world can meet to read, discuss, and write haiku.