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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120119f1.html


Haiku habit: Hideichi Oshiro, who donated his life work to Goddard College in Vermont, is interviewed at his home in Newburgh, New York, in December. KYODO

NEWBURGH, New York — In the 1920s, Tokyo high school student Hideichi Oshiro was moved by a haiku by Edo Period poet Matsuo Basho describing the subtle beauty of a wildflower he had come across during a walk in the mountains.

After reading the poem by Basho (1644-1694), "I wanted to make this kind of haiku in my life. Nothing else, just one haiku," the 101-year-old Oshiro said in a recent interview at his Newburgh, New York, home, about 100 km north of Manhattan.

The centenarian poet has completed much more in his lifetime than just one haiku. Oshiro, known to his friends and family as "Hide," continues to write a new poem every morning, as he has done for decades.

Oshiro is also an artist and in November donated his entire life's work, totaling about 750 pieces of art, along with the many volumes of poetry he has published, to Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. The artworks include calligraphy, paintings, stories, handmade books, sketches and scrolls.