Bruce Ross, a humanities educator and past president of the Haiku Society of America, has authored four collections of haiku, most recently summer drizzles . . . haiku and haibun. He edited Haiku Moment, An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku and Journey to the Interior, American Versions of Haibun, co-edits the annual Contemporary Haibun, and edits haibun for moonset. He also authored How to Haiku, A Writer’s Guide to Haiku and Related Forms and endless small waves haibun (2008). He lives with his wife Astrid in Maine.

People write a haiku for a reason. I feel that a haiku is an opening to the self through a connection to the world. That connection is an insight that enriches the haiku poet. I first began to understand this through reading what the Beat poets read, including haiku and Zen writers like Hakuin, and looking at Zen-oriented drawings, such as those of Paul Reps.