EU president publishes haiku collection

Apr 15, 2010, 15:45 GMT

Brussels - The president of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy, on Thursday published his first collection of poems in the Japanese style called haiku.

The ascetic 62-year-old Belgian politician, economist and philosopher is famed in Brussels for his love of the terse poems. His habit of writing them to comment on everyday scenes was not derailed by his December appointment as the EU's top politician.

   One of his latest compositions, posted online on March 20 - just days before he hosted a crunch EU summit - runs:

   'Thinned out and grown bald, You can now see through the wood All the way to spring.'

Haiku follow a standard three-line format, with five, seven, then five syllables.

Van Rompuy has long contributed haiku to the Dutch-language media in Belgium and published them online, but Thursday's publication is his first full anthology.

The poems are published in Dutch - his native language - with translations into English, French and Latin.

   Van Rompuy has already published six books on subjects such as 'Christendom: a modern thought' and 'Renewal in head and heart.'

   His interest in haiku has sparked imitations, with august publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Britain's Independent immortalizing his appointment with verses of their own.