The first encounters of Danish poetry with Japanese short-form poetry came via the early-20th-century translations in English, French and German. It was only after mid-century that the first Danish-language versions of Japanese haiku appeared in print. The first haiku in Danish that was clearly influenced by haiku appeared in 1957, and in the decades that followed many poets tried their hand at haiku, both in forms that hewed closely to the standard Japanese model and in a free form derived from Danish modernist poetry. The catalyst for a broader interest in haiku came with the publication of the first full collection of 150 haiku and an introduction to the Japanese genre in 1963. The first organization to gather haiku poets, the Haiku Group of the Danish Authors’ Society, was founded in 2001. The Haiku Group published an anthology with Danish haiku and articles on haiku elsewhere in 2005.

Thorvald Berthelsen (born June 6, 1948, Aarhus, Denmark), retired university teacher, social worker, IT system developer, and poet. He has published nine poetry collections, six of which are haiku. Most recent: Sky Quake/ زلزال سماوي, India 2020. Berthelsen’s work has been translated into nine languages. In 2012, during the European summit, he organized a haiku session with Danish haiku poets and European Council President Hermann Van Rompuy. He has since edited the presentation in English and Danish of Danish haiku poets in Danish Haiku Today (latest edition 2019). He is the author of the Haikupedia article "Haiku in Denmark." Resides in Sakskøbing.