Publisher's Synopsis
Haiku's rise in popularity over recent years has done much to demystify poetry for an indifferent public. 'Popular' poetry in Western cultures has often been the preserve of cheap rhymsters, while so-called 'serious' verse has come over as remote and inaccessible.Haiku breaks through these barriers, and like the Italian sonnet in the sixteenth century, promises to play a large part in our future development. Assembled in this definitive collection are twenty-five of the world's best exponents of this small Japanese verse form.The two editors worked for three years collecting the verse, and they include a thought-provoking introduction to, and history of Western haiku, giving it a specific literary and social context
