Self-portrait
Klaus-Dieter Wirth (born October 28, 1940, Neuss, Germany). Trained as a philologist and linguist, he is retired from teaching language in schools and at the University of Düsseldorf. He has been writing haiku in German, English, French, Spanish, and Dutch since 1967 and publishing his work internationally since 1995. He is a member of seven European and North American haiku societies and has been a freelance contributor or served on the editorial staff of journals that include Sommergras (Germany), Lotosblüte (Austria), Blithe Spirit (U.K.), Gong (France), Vuursteen (Netherlands/Belgium), Frogpond and Modern Haiku (U.S.A.), Haiku Canada Review, Hojas en la Acera (Spain), Haiku Novine (Serbia), Iris (Croatia), Haiku (Romania), Kō (Japan), Whirligig (Dutch and English), and Chrysanthemum (German and English). He has published some 400 poems, essays, and articles and currently has four quadrilingual haiku collections in print. Der Ruf des Hototogisu: Grundbausteine des Haiku (The Call of the Hototogisu: Basic Building Blocks of Haiku; 2020), is his two-volume compendium of essays including more than 1,890 original and translated haiku. Wirth resides in Viersen, Germany.
Note: This is an abstract of a longer biographical article to come.