A collection of classical Japanese haiku selected and translated by one of America's premier poet-translators.Haiku may be the most popular and widely recognized poetic form in the world. In just three lines, a great haiku presents a crystalline moment of image, emotion, and awareness. In this collection of haiku, translator Sam Hamill has compiled the best of traditional Japanese poetry, with a particular focus on the three great masters: Bash?, Buson, and Issa. Based on images from nature, the poems address the themes of joy, temporality, beauty, wonder, loneliness, and loss. 

 SAM HAMILL (1943-2018) translated more than two dozen books from ancient Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Latin, and Estonian and published fourteen volumes of original poetry. He was the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Mellon Fund; and was awarded the Decoración de la Universidad de Carabobo in Venezuela, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry from Washington Poets Association, and the PEN American Freedom to Write Award. He cofounded and served as Editor at Copper Canyon Press for thirty-two years and was the Director of Poets Against War.