Brimming with insights, and featuring sparkling new translations of 50 of the most superb haikus ever written, this opulent collection captures the spirit of the form and opens up its beauty to a whole new audience. Haiku emerged within a great flowering of Japanese arts a thousand years ago, including calligraphy and ink painting, and haiku blended with them to create poetry that is as close to the visual image as language can come. These gloriously illustrated pages trace haiku's most profound, thought-provoking, and imaginative themes, including: Zen Buddhism; the life of the poet; the Japanese court; the cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo, where the style flourished; the beauty of the landscape; the status of women; and the ever-fascinating samurai.