Book-of-the-Week

Book of the Week: Autumn Wind in the Cracks

clausenwind

Tom Clausen not only hosts this feature, but has long worked in the genre himself. Some early work can be found here, in a self-published chapbook dating to 1994.

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

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




empty parking lot
some wind collects and swirls
leaves into a shape


in early morning rain
I return
a stranger's solemn nod



with friends
I open the fortune cookie
without a fortune


in another country
from a flatcar
the Milky Way



sidewalk sale-
wind twists a lifetime
guarantee tag


x-ray room
they remove
her crucifix



morning zazen:
marriage counseling
ourselves


train receding
its wake in the grasses
still waving



end to end
three Ramblers take part
in the overgrown field


cold autumn wind
in all the cracks
eyes of barncats



autumn moonlight
folded in
the clothes on the floor


the hypnotist
describes her technique
sound of the stream



calling
for the lost cat...
windchimes


mountaintop
giving back
each breath



the way
rain takes
the mountain

This Post Has 5 Comments

  2. Good haiku are ever-fresh and these (although from 1994) ARE sprightly!
    Thanks for the opportunity to read what I may not have had the chance to otherwise.
    Thanks again for this wonderful Book Of The Week feature. It has become my favorite!

  3. Tom always seems to acheive something I struggle with all the time… He finds (or he know?) the words that reveal the “thusness of things.” Simple, unaffected expressions that are beyond words. I am always well rewarded by spending some time with his poetry. So glad he’s made his haiku available to all.

  4. Thank you, Jim, and thank you, Tom, for this post.

    I must have ordered your book, Tom, after reading your poems in Modern Haiku and/or Frogpond. Your warmth and understanding of the caregiving years I was then living with my mother and family were part of my support. There is empathy in your art.

    I just reread your book here at THF and would like to add a few more of your haiku – I won’t try to get the form of the lines exact in a comment:

    alone in the waiting room
    checking the plant
    for reality

    farm auction
    fields filled with asters
    and goldenrod

    wanting my old life
    when I wanted
    my present life

    – Tom Clausen

    And many blessings, Ellen

  5. Clausen-san’s haiku have stayed in my head and heart all these years…the way/rain takes/the mountain/ …echoing again and again. I’m so very grateful.

    -Patrick

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