Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku

This volume of seasonally-arranged poems is a guide to the appreciation and enjoyment of the great variety of modern Japanese haiku. From turn-of-the-century masters to poets of today, 300 of Japan’s best modern haiku are introduced by Ozawa Minoru, a leading contemporary haiku poet and critic. Each of the poems, many of them scarcely known, is sensitively discussed together with the background of the poem and the relations between the poets.

The volume includes poems from the end of the century through the beginning of the twenty-first century by the most important writers of modern haiku. Alongside these are works by well-known novelists and other cultural figures who were not professional haiku poets but for whom haiku was an important part of their lives, such as Kubota Mantarō, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, and Natsume Sōseki. The book also features beautiful seasonal photographs at the beginning of each chapter.