".. Hokku is not a matter of just absorbing the basic principles and techniques in a week or a month or a year; it is rather a matter of beginning to live hokku, so that between one's writing and one's living there is no difference. And that is the work of a lifetime."
-David Coomler
Hokku is the origin of haiku, coming from the time of Basho. It was originally the short verse in a renga, and also the verse used in haiga. I think David Coomler's thought about hokku also describes how I (and many other micropoets) feel about modern day haiku and tanka.