The Essential Haiku

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hass

www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/robert-hass


“I know that for years, I didn’t see how deeply personal these poems were or’ to say in anotther way, how much they have the flavor -- Basho might have said ‘the scent’ -- of particular human life, because I had been told and wanted to believe that haiku were never subjective. I think it was D.H Lawrence who said the soul can get to heaven in one leap but that, if it does, it leaves a demon in its place. Better to sink down through the levels of those poems -- their attention to the year; their ideas about it, the particular human consciousness the poems reflect, Basho’s profound loneliness and sense of suffering Buson evenness of temper, his love for the materials of art and for the color and shape of the things, Issa’s pathos and comedy and anger.” ~ Robert Hass from the Introduction