Book-of-the-Week

Book of the Week: Bouncing Off the Window

 

 

Today’s Book of the Week, Bouncing Off the Window, is by the late British haiku poet Peter Williams. Peter is best known for his humourous verse, including gentle send-ups of haiku clichés. In this self-published volume from 2001, Peter’s whimsical imagination is in full play:

sunlit grass
an unleashed dog
led by the nose

calm day
a swan
unzips the river

the comedian
walking off stage to the sound
of his own footsteps

 

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

  2. .
    .
    Wonderful poet!
    .
    .
    We never got round to meeting despite the fact he lived in Watford, where my father-in-law resided.
    .
    Although not in this particular collection, his wonderful work that also spoofed the big wave of haiku about herons being constantly still (and silent), inspired this post at THF:
    .
    .
    branch above the river
    the heron
    moves about a lot
    .
    .
    And this spoof on the proliferation of shadow haiku during the late 1990s:
    .
    .
    too tired to get up–
    my shadow goes and makes
    a cup of tea

    .
    .

    Both haiku by:
    .
    Peter Williams
    Blithe Spirit Vol. II No.3 (2001)
    https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/forum_sm/index.php?topic=3505.0
    .
    .
    You are still greatly missed.
    .
    warm regards,
    Alan

    2. So pleased, Alan, you called him a ‘wonderful poet’ – because he deserves that rather than simply being called an excellent haiku writer.

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