In the 1920s, Tokyo high school student Hideichi Oshiro was moved by a haiku by Edo Period poet Matsuo Basho describing the subtle beauty of a wildflower he had come across during a walk in the mountains.
After reading the poem by Basho (1644-1694), "I wanted to make this kind of haiku in my life. Nothing else, just one haiku," the 101-year-old Oshiro said in a recent interview at his Newburgh, New York, home, about 100 km north of Manhattan.
The centenarian poet has completed much more in his lifetime than just one haiku. Oshiro, known to his friends and family as "Hide," continues to write a new poem every morning, as he has done for decades.