Haiku—seventeen-syllable poems that evoke worlds despite their brevity—have captivated Japanese readers since the seventeenth century. Today the form is practiced worldwide and is an established part of our common global heritage. This beautifully bound volume presents new English translations of classic poetry by the four great masters of Japanese haiku: Matsuo Bash, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Masaoka Shiki. The haiku are accompanied by both the original Japanese and a phonetic transcription.

These 26 delicious scenes retrieved from childhood help us, young and old, to revisit those times and to share them anew. Not the cookie-cutter haiku you'll find in similar books, Liz Crocket's work will introduce your child (and perhaps you!) to the way contemporary haiku has evolved over the past half-century, and perhaps inspire you to capture your own special moments in the same fashion. -- Jim Kacian, Editor-in-Chief, Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years Elizabeth Crocket has filled this book with happy stories from nature, lessons on life, great ideas for children to try, and lots of family love. The 26 haiku--as many as the letters in the alphabet--present fine examples of alliteration "birthday bat", expression "cutting teeth", suspense "suddenly..." and hinge questions, "do you love me?" Short and simple to read on 3-lines following the form of traditional Japanese poetry, these haiku can inspire children from as early as two to become creative writers too. - David McMurray (Asahi Haikuist columnist in Japan)

A guide to haiku uses examples from around the world to convey the importance of the seasons.

Simple yet capable of great complexity, the haiku is a tightly structured verse form that has a remarkable power to distill the essence of a moment keenly perceived. For centuries confined to a small literary elite in Japan, the writing of haiku is now practiced all over the world by those who are fascinated by its combination of technical challenge, expressive means, and extreme concentration. This anthology brings together hundreds of haiku by the Japanese masters–Basho, Issa, Buson, Shiki–with superb examples from nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers. The pioneering translator R. H. Blyth believed that the spirit of haiku is present in all great poetry; inspired by him, the editor of this volume has included lines from such poets as Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Thoreau, and Hopkins, presented here in haiku form. Following them are haiku and haiku-influenced poems of the twentieth century–from Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” to William Carlos Williams’s “Prelude to Winter,” and from the irreverence of Jack Kerouac to the lyricism of Langston Hughes. The result is a collection as compact, dynamic, and scintillating as the form itself.