Harold Gould Henderson (1889–1974)

This is a very short book -- it can easily be read in one afternoon. It's a nice straightforward introduction to Japanese Haiku, English Haiku, and Teaching Haiku. For the novice, even the novice who intends to dig deeply into haiku literature, this is a very appropriate first book to read to set the tone for further reading. (It's not really intended for experts though, so it doesn't have much to offer at that level). Being short, it seems quite appropriate for a short workshop or for a one-week study of haiku in a semester poetry class. It gives sufficient examples but doesn't contain a collection of haiku itself. One beautiful aspect of this book that it's easy to overlook is that each page has a wonderful little illustration at the top, and they're almost always relevant to the topic of the page. They're subtle and easy to not pay attention to, but they're really nice and worth the attention.… (more)