Sayumi Kamakura

500 Haiku of Sayumi Kamakura

The remarkable haiku in this collection were drawn from Sayumi Kamakura's Collected Haiku published in Japan in 2016. They span her entire career of writing haiku up to the present, which began at the age of 19 when she was a sophomore at Saitama University. She had joined a haiku circle, sharing and critiquing haiku with fellow writers under the guidance of a teacher, but she eventually left the group, explaining once that the workshops "aim only to win sympathy and praise at the moment and to gain points" and that the haiku was intended "only for those present at such sessions." For her, the poems were too safe, written in "calculated imitation of others and oneself." She realized that there was a deeper way to pursue her newfound artform and she forged a lifelong dedication to writing.