Book-of-the-Week

Book of the Week: Drifting

 

The chance discovery of a woman’s diary in an abandoned farmhouse in Ontario led Canadian poet Marco Fraticelli to compose haiku to complement the entries, which together told a compelling story of farm life for women during the late 19th and early 20th C. Though separated by a hundred years, the two writers of Drifting, our Book of the Week, the one compelled by loneliness, poverty, and hope, the other by art, come together in a moving testimony to certain universals of human experience.

 

June 30, 1911

An awful lightning shower. Fifty-one years since I came and opened my eyes to this world of sin.

We had a talk about breaking up.

The last of the dear June month has gone. Not all sadness but so unsettled all the time. I wish I knew where God would have me. Such drifting.

in the window
my face
regretting the things said

 

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 9 Comments

  1. I was mesmerized by Celesta’s heartfelt story. And your haiku added to it in just the perfect dimension. Thank you!
    Marilyn Walker

    1. Thank you very much for your comments. It was so important to me that my haiku not clash or detract from Celesta’s words.

  2. So very grateful to you for featuring Drifting. It has brought a whole new interest to Celesta’s story. Many thanks.

  3. I just loved this. The haiku both deepen and transform the diarist’s experiences in amazing ways–just as setting words to music both changes and draws out a text’s most profound meanings.

  4. Beautiful and heartbreaking. Thank you to the author, poet, and THF for making this available. I will be reading it again. Debbie

    1. So wonderful to read this kind of response. Even I am still moved by Celesta’s words, even though I’ve read them hundreds of times.

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