Haiku seems to induce a desire to discover and explain. What is to be discovered is an essence, a reductive key to the understanding of a culture. And when it has been revealed, it must be taught.
These three new books about haiku have been written by authors with considerable experience. All have been closely associated with the Haiku Society of America, and each employs some of his or her own work for the purposes of illustration. The first two books are guides to haiku, and the third is a volume of discursive essays.
Bruce Ross' previous publication, an anthology of North American Haiku called "The Haiku Moment" and his new guide reflect what seems to have become the prevailing orthodoxy: "haiku takes place in the present . . . So haiku is not really a tiny lyric poem." He explains that it is "a moment of insight connected with nature," and offers this verse of his own as one of the examples: