Matsuo Basho

A Japanese poet of the seventeenth century regarded as the figure who raised haiku's predecessor, the hokku, from a lighthearted opening verse of collaborative renga into a serious independent form capable of carrying real depth of feeling. His travel journal Oku no Hosomichi, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, interweaving prose and hokku from a walking journey through northern Japan, is the classic model for haibun, the mixed prose and haiku travel account, and his individual hokku, including his widely translated poem on an old pond and a frog's sound, are among the form's most frequently cited examples in and outside Japan.