Book-of-the-Week

Book of the Week: Autumn Wind in the Cracks

 

Our Book of the Week is Autumn Wind in the Cracks, by Tom Clausen. This very satisfying book of haiku from one of the English language masters should be on everyone’s virtual bookshelf. It displays great variety of subjects, handled with creativity and skill.

 

in another country
from a flatcar
the Milky Way

 

 

sidewalk sale—
wind twists a lifetime
guarantee tag

 

 

train receding:
its wake in the grasses
still waving . . .

 

You can read the entire book in the THF Digital Library.

Do you have a chapbook published 2010 or earlier you would like featured as a Book of the Week? Contact us for details.

Haiku featured in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by THF Digital Librarian Garry Eaton, and are used with permission

 

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. That display of botanical muscle might still need a bit of help from the gardener . Water trees and shrubs through autumn, so they can begin winter with a head start on moisture. Even in winter, trees, especially young ones, can benefit from watering every three or four weeks when temperatures are above freezing. Dousing them early in the day gives them more time to absorb the water before night freezes the soil. As cold weather begins, wrap tree trunks with crepe-paper tree wrap or burlap until spring to prevent sun scald, which occurs when sunlight on a subfreezing day warms a tree trunk to as much as 40 some degrees above freezing, allowing ice to form in the tree cells during night cold and producing dead tissues that in spring will crack open.

  3. Tom Clausen is a wonderful poet. I think I first learned about this book from Modern Haiku, years ago. Tom’s work encouraged me when I was caring for my mother – and since her passing, also years ago now. I loved seeing how chapbooks could be created and shared through the mail. So good of THF to preserve them here, and offer to all.

  4. Without the Book-of-the-Week publication I would have missed out on Tom Clausen’s poignant haiku.
    Reading this haiku I felt less alone & a clearly expressed sense of our common humanity:
    wanting my old life
    when I wanted my
    my present life

Comments are closed.

Back To Top