Momoko Kuroda (b. 1938 in Tochigi Prefecture) is one of the most highly-respected haiku poets in Japan today. She has published five collections of haiku, and authored or co-authored another 22 prose works including essays, season-word compendiums, books on haiku for beginners, and a two-volume set of interviews with notable Showa-era poets.
Abigail Friedman, a retired diplomat and accomplished, award-winning haiku poet, began composing haiku in a haiku group that met at the foot of Mt. Fuji, led by Japanese haiku master Momoko Kuroda. Her book, The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 2006), captures that experience and her insights into haiku.