Politics needs poetry -- so hooray for Herman Van Rompuy

First let me say this: on balance, I would far rather that people in politics were writing poetry than not. Where are the poets in the House of Commons? So let's give Herman Van Rompuy a round of applause.

However, I am suspicious of the haiku as a form. I have read a great many over the years – it is the default form in schools, and children are always being made to write them – and have come to believe that haikus are particularly popular among those who don't have time for poetry.

At its best, the form has a delicacy to it which can be very beautiful. At its worst, a haiku is a miniature place for people who don't like poetry to hide in. When a haiku works, it has a simplicity and brevity which I like – and brevity is close to the very heart of poetry. But if you don't pull it off there is a flatness and banality to the form.

I am not sure Van Rompuy totally avoids that. There is, I'm afraid, a touch of the Basil Fotherington-Thomas in some of his work – an awful conservative, picturesque prettiness.

Some are good, though. My favourite is Water:

Puddles wait

for warmth to evaporate.

Water becomes a cloud

He captures an idea of transience here, and of cyclical return – ideas which are central to the tradition of haikus. It is a scene of quietness, but there is threat in it.

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