Book-of-the-Week

Book of the Week: A Bowl of Sloes

cobb_sloes

David Cobb is the doyen of British haiku, and co-founder of the British Haiku Society. This work finds him in typical top form, from Snapshot Press in 2000.

Snapshot Press declines to make this book available to The Haiku Foundation Digital Library at this time.

All haiku in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by Tom Clausen, and are used with permission.




incoming tide—
the surf-watcher’s shadow
starts to float


equinox:
above closed celandines
the stars come out


stuffing the guy—
drafts of poems
long ago in print


in the bedroom mirror
the old slow bowler
bowls at himself


treading
on wormcasts
my hero’s grave


sciatica—
I listen to the lark
flat out


Culloden
and back to town
for tea


another tide—
the beached whale’s jawbone
deeper in the sand

This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. Thank you David, my favorite haibunist [if that is a word] of all time.

    gene

  2. treading
    on wormcasts
    my hero’s grave

    …fits sublimely in the tradition while making it new…I’m in such awe of poets like Cobb-san who can work this magic.

    -Patrick

  3. Thank you, David, for contributing this chapbook to The Haiku Foundation Digital Library. Every one of your haiku is a great pleasure to read.

    Garry Eaton

  4. ps, I love the wryness of this one:

    at his funeral
    his fellow councillors
    sing in unison

    I often see the ironically raised eyebrow in David Cobb’s ku.

    – Lorin

  5. *deeper in the sane *

    um, Tom.. . typo alert. I think the final letter in the final word of the final ku, above, should be d , not e.

    Enjoyed reading through David Cobb’s haiku here . It’s an excellent chapbook.

    – Lorin

  6. Yes, it’s a lovely chapbook. The title, as well as referring to the fruit, is a pun alluding to cricket – as implied by the ‘old slow bowler’ senryu above. David has done so much to further haiku in England and the British Isles as a whole, and, crucially, to establish and extend the concept of native season-words. As the ‘sciatica’ poem shows, David’s always had a sparkle in his eye too.

  7. I enjoyed “meeting” David Cobb when I viewed his video in THF Lectures – and enjoyed his book. I looked up “sloe,” and now see the book cover. Wonderful.

    Thanks, Ellen

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