Haiku in English founded National Haiku Writing Month, also known as NaHaiWriMo. It has been held in February of each year, starting in 2011, with the objective to write at least one haiku per day all month long—"the shortest month of the year for the shortest genre of poetry," according to Welch. Although the vast majority of haiku published in English are three lines long, variants also occur. The most common variation from the three-line standard is one line, sometimes called a "monoku". It emerged from being more than an occasional exception during the late 1970s. The one-line form, based on an analogy
Haiku Japanese masters and American and Canadian contemporary haiku authors. The former president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, is a "haijin" (, haiku poets) and known as "Haiku Herman." He published a book of haiku in April 2010. In the early 20th century, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore composed haiku in Bengali. He also translated some from Japanese. In Gujarati, Jhinabhai Desai 'Sneharashmi' popularized haiku and remained a popular haiku writer. In February 2008, the World Haiku Festival was held in Bangalore, gathering "haijin" from all over India and Bangladesh, as well as from Europe and the United States. In