Worldwide
In the early 21st century, there is a thriving community of haiku poets worldwide, mainly communicating through national and regional societies and journals in Japan, in the English-speaking countries (including India), in Northern Europe (mainly Sweden, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands), in central and southeast Europe (mainly Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania), and in Russia. Haiku journals published in southeast Europe include Letni časi (Slovenia), Vrabac (Croatia), Haiku Novine (Serbia), and Albatros (Romania).
In the early 20th century, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore composed haiku in Bengali. He also translated some from Japanese. In Gujarati, Zeenabhai Ratanji Desai 'Sneharashmi' popularized haiku and remains a popular haiku writer. In February 2008, the World Haiku Festival was held in Bangalore, gathering haijin (俳人, haiku poets) from all over India and Bangladesh, as well as from Europe and the US. In South Asia, some other poets also write Haiku from time to time, most notably including the Pakistani poet Omer Tarin, who is also active in the movement for global nuclear disarmament and some of his 'Hiroshima Haiku' have been read at various peace conferences in Japan and the UK.
Some groups, such as the Haiku International Association, try to promote exchanges between Japanese and foreign haiku poets.
The President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy is a notable haijin and known as "Haiku Herman". He published a book of haiku in April 2010.
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