Lovely Haiku

In a review of William Howard Cohen's To Walk in Seasons

What I really love is the introductory line to the post: Another older book I've read recently to prepare for the fall haiku session 

and I love it because I initially misread it to say: Another older book I've read recently to prepare for the haiku season

I love the thought of a haiku season, which for me, would be any season--but there's something resonant about thinking about haikus in seasons.

I'm entranced by the first of the haiku offered, and amused to the point of an out-right chuckle by the second.  But all of them are strong in their own ways--go and pick your favorite, and if you're inclined to, please let me know which it is.

Comments

  1. Issa's Untidy HutAugust 20, 2010 at 2:34 PM

    Steven, thanks for the nod and kind words - I forgot that not everyone is going to realize I've been talking about a one-shot haiku class I'm doing for life-long learners in the fall. The serendipity of session/seasons is rather lovely.

    Don

    ReplyDelete
  2. FredAugust 20, 2010 at 4:35 PM

    Under the cherry shower
    water down the mountain
    turning stones to songs.

    Onitsura

    I have to go with this one.



    "turning stones to songs"

    a very strong line--stones + water: song

    ReplyDelete
  3. StevenAugust 20, 2010 at 4:48 PM

    Dear Don,

    Thank you so much for such a wonderful post, and indeed, a wonderful site.

    Fred,

    I loved that one as well, for much the same reason. Thank you for letting me know.

    shalom

    Steven

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another Queen of Night

I post this because whenever I recommend to anyone the Queen of Night, I always recommend it in the Lucia Popp rendition.  It's a matter of personal taste, but what I love about this is that it is somewhat slower than the other versions and as a result, it would seem to me somewhat more difficult to perform and sustain--those high notes in which the Queen's voice becomes the Magic Flute itself are rounded, full, and deep while remaining light and airy. I have read some rather severe criticism of this ritardando; and while it may or may not reflect Mozart's intent, it is certainly within the options for staging.  It creates a real vocal showpiece from what is already a magnificent example of same. It really is an amazing example of a virtuoso composition sung by a virtuoso voice.  All of which should not be taken to mean that I do not truly appreciate the version posted earlier by Diana Damrau, it's just nice to see what a difference tempo can make. I think we can take
Read more

Angel Time--Anne Rice

Review copy received 11/04/09 From the time of its announcement, I had been looking forward to this new book by Anne Rice.  As I say in every review, I am not a die-hard Anne Rice fan.  I found Interview with a Vampire interesting and intriguing, but in hindsight, must lay much of the responsibility of the current vampire as victim and love-object obsession at its feet.  After that, I had no patience with her writing until Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. In that book I observed a kind of control and authorial voice that I had not seen in any of the books I had sampled since Interview .  So too with Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. Perhaps because of the subject matter, perhaps for other reasons, these two books seemed to witness a level of control of language and story that the other books did not.  Gone were messy florid passages that lavished two, three, four paragraphs on the description of the lace and flounce of a jabot.  These new books were spare, polished, poetic. The
Read more