Customer Reviews

Journey to the Interior: American Versions of Haibun

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Haibun is a Japanese form consisting of poetic prose with haiku and/or tanka interspersed or at the end of the piece. The title is an allusion to the work, "The Narrow Path to the Interior" by the great haiku master Basho.

Ross writes a priceless introduction to haibun that serves as a course all by itself so if you know nothing at all about this wonderful form, you will come away from this book with a solid foundation.

I am taking this book to present it (along with other haibun books) at the June literary gathering under auspices of the Shakespeare bookstore in Latin Quarter. Buy this trailblazing book.
Haibun is a promising genre transplanted from Japan. Here is one short example:

Little Haibun for Chet Raymo.

Every morning Chet Raymo {Chester Raymond} walks from his house in North Easton to college where he teaches physics and astronomy.
It is only one mile across the Southern Massachusetts.

He notices how the woods and meadow change over time. While crossing the piece of conservation land he even detects Native Americans ephemeral presence.
First American iron shovels were made in the vicinity. But now this site is abandoned completely.
Chet traces the granite boulder's origin to the place 3 miles north. A mighty glacier once traversed this exurbia dragging rocks, often the immense ones.
Chet repeats in disbelief, "To write about such things every week for 20 years in the Boston Globe and get paid for that."
His one mile is essentially a ginko walk and I ask him whether he has ever fallen in a poetry mood in the last 40 years of stepping through this sanctuary with "reverent feet."
"No, he says, it's easier to write good prose than good poetry."
He has produced a beautifully made book about his 10,000 walks along the same route and named it "The Path. One Mile Walk through the Universe."
And how do I fight my looming oblivion? By writing this review?

crispy morning...
in the Internet blight
my dustbin of history.