"Who doesn't love haiku? It is not only America's most popular cultural import from Japan but also our most popular poetic form: instantly recognizable, more mobile than a sonnet, and loved for its simplicity and compression, as well as for its ease of composition. Haiku is an ancient literary form seemingly made for the Twittersphere--Jack Kerouac and Langston Hughes wrote them, Ezra Pound and the Imagists were inspired by them, first-grade students...

This haiku book provides an invaluable guide to developing your own haiku-writing skills, with clear explanations, brilliant examples, and innovative writing exercises. It also offers an introduction to related Japanese poetic forms including: o Senryu commentaries on human nature that are often humorous or ironic o Haibun short, autobiographical narratives accompanied by a haiku o Tanka imaginative poems full of highly personal, emotional expressions...

Won Ton and his boy are enjoying a fine life until "Doom" -- a dog that's smelly and steals his dinner -- arrives, but soon the disgruntled cat learns that his new family member might have some good points, too.