Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart [Hardcover]

Patricia Donegan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2008

Haiku, the Japanese form of poetry written in three short lines, is celebrated for its ability to express a simple moment in a profound way. The “haiku moment,” as it is called, refers to a heightened awareness of the world around us and how, in that small, transient period, the greater essence of our lives is reflected.

As our culture speeds up and our personal lives feel overbooked and busy, haiku can offer an easy way to slow down, appreciate the simple things around us, and give us a moment to reflect on our lives. In Haiku Mind, Patricia Donegan presents 108 haiku that offer a larger lesson on how we can approach our lives. With themes such as honesty, transience, and compassion, Donegan offers haiku and commentary as a form of meditation—a moment where we can slowly and naturally discover what is simply here.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Haiku Mind succeeds as a book I can share with my in-laws or the guy at the coffee shop. Donegan has a confident grasp of the subject and her poem selections are strong. As her meditations often include discussions of biography and allusion, even old hands will find new aspects of familiar poems.”—Modern Haiku

About the Author

Patricia Donegan is a poet, translator, and promoter of haiku as an awareness practice. She was a faculty member of East-West poetics at Naropa University under Allen Ginsberg and Chögyam Trungpa; a student of Japanese haiku master Seishi Yamaguchi; and a Fulbright scholar to Japan. She is a meditation teacher, the poetry editor for Kyoto Journal, and a member of the Haiku Society of America. Her haiku works include Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart, Chiyo-ni: Woman Haiku Master  (co-translated with Yoshie Ishibashi), and Haiku: Asian Arts for Creative Kids. Her poetry collections include Without Warning, Bone Poems, and Hot Haiku.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala (October 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590305795
• ISBN-13: 978-1590305799
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 7.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Asian

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great idea, Well executed, November 27, 2008

By 

Michael P. Maslanka (dallas, texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart (Hardcover)

108 haiku, each a gem , followed by a short comment. The topics range from karma(a white lotus---/the monk decides/to cut it !) to justice(reflected/in the sword's blade/soft summer clouds), and each makes you think and reflect and , with luck, go 'Ah. I see." Good selections, both ancient and modern, as well as cultural, both Japanese and Western. A wonderful book.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Revealing Look into Haiku, March 1, 2009

By 

Cor van den Heuvel (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart (Hardcover)

Haiku Mind contains the best--the most insightful--commentary on haiku since the great works of R. H. Blyth. If you want to know what haiku is about, what a haiku can do, why haiku are important, read this book. Patricia Donegan looks into the heart of haiku by exploring outstanding individual examples with a perceptive, aware, and sensitive eye. The literary essay has never known finer moments.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How to explain haiku to your mother-in-law, July 15, 2009

By 

Matthew Cariello - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart (Hardcover)

Each of these 108 haiku is accompanied by a brief commentary that creates a context for the poem and explains how it works. The commentaries are insightful, although the titles for them (Pausing, Honesty, Sky-Mind) feel like editorial add-ons. I'm not quite as enthusiastic as the other reviewers, mainly because there's not enough about the language and structure of haiku here. But maybe my expectations are too literary. This is really a general audience book, which is in itself a laudable achievement. Give Haiku Mind book to everybody who doesn't understand why you spend all that time writing three-line poems that barely make sense: if they don't get it after reading the book, they never will.