Poetry Japanese formal poetry (which was generally referred to as "waka"), and was used more heavily to explore personal rather than public themes. By the tenth century, tanka had become the dominant form of Japanese poetry, to the point where the originally general term "waka" ("Japanese poetry") came to be used exclusively for tanka. Tanka are still widely written today. Haiku is a popular form of unrhymed Japanese poetry, which evolved in the 17th century from the "hokku", or opening verse of a renku. Generally written in a single vertical line, the haiku contains three sections totalling 17 "onji", structured in
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