But the inspiration for the book is Japanese. Van Rompuy is a practitioner of the art of haiku, the spare poetic form consisting of three lines totalling 17 syllables, which he has been posting on his blog since 2004. It all began, he explains, as a meeting of “the eternal coincidence which decides everything.”

After being introduced to the form by Bart Mesotten, sometimes known as Flanders’ Father of Haiku, Van Rompuy was hooked. “Since then I haven’t stopped,” he writes. “Not out of any obsession or passionate drive, but with desire all the same.”

The publication of the book, titled simply Haiku, caused a wave of interest among the international press, not to mention the Japanese ambassador to Belgium, who was present at a signing. Van Rompuy’s fondness for haiku is well known in the Land of the Rising Sun, where his talents are greatly appreciated. A Japanese translation of the book is expected to follow shortly.

A sample:

In de sloot paren
de padden zich driftig
de lenteleven in

In the ditch, a pair
of copulating toads drift
into spring’s new life

(English translation by Flanders Today)

http://hermanvanrompuy.typepad.com