Buson (and Basho) have to be the greatest writers of haiku ever. For example, here is one of my favorite Buson pieces, brought to mind during an online discussion this morning about forms of poetry:

The piercing chill I feel:
my dead wife’s comb, in our bedroom,
under my heel.

Most American and modern Haiku, particularly that of the Beat era, seems to me to be written too hastily, as if the every flash of inspiration must translate into a Haiku, and each must observe a formal set of rules about the nature of Haiku that are not true at all.

But there are some gems, such as this one, by Bernard Einbond, a New York poet:

frog pond…
a leaf falls in
without a sound

Which is, of course, an allusion to perhaps the most famous example of haiku ever, again by Basho:

old pond…
a frog leaps in
water’s sound

Because so many myths about the composition and form of haiku are drilled into us as children (and it is a form providing a superfically simple hook upon which to engage children with poetry), we lose sight of haiku as a respectable art form. Haiku is more relevant than ever in these overly complex, technically mediated times… we just don’t often get the free time we need to appreciate it, and there are so few poets really putting in the time to create good examples when we do.

Perhaps my favorite entry by an English speaking poet is Ezra Pound’s rightly famous “In a Station of the Metro” which runs in its entirety:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Which, if you count the title, is still one of the best examples of what I would call a modern, English haiku form.