On Haiku : New Directions Books : 9780811227414 : 0811227413 : 04 Dec 2018 : "Who doesn't love haiku? It is not only America's most popular cultural import from Japan but also our most popular poetic form: instantly recognizable, more mobile than a sonnet, and loved for its simplicity and compression, as well as for its ease of composition. Haiku is an ancient literary form seemingly made for the Twittersphere--Jack Kerouac and Langston Hughes wrote them, Ezra Pound and the Imagists were inspired by them, first-grade students across the country still learn to write them. But whatreally is a haiku? Where does the form come from? Who were the Japanese poets who originated them? And how has their work been translated into English over the years? The haiku form comes down to us today as a clichâe: a three-line poem of 5-7-5 syllables. And yet its story is actually much more colorful and multifaceted. And of course to write a good one can be as difficult as writing a Homeric epic--or it can