This collection of Japanese haiku by an American expat is an important contribution to the world of poetry.Edith Shiffert, called by Poetry Nippon ""one of Kyoto's living nation-and international- treasures,"" here writes brief poems in the form of traditional Japanese haiku for each month of the year. Taken as a whole, the poems describe an American woman's twenty five-five year sojourn in KyotoThe poems, over 350 in all, are beautifully complemented by the traditional Japanese ink-paintings of Kyoto-born artist Kohka Saito.