Book of the Week: Emblems of Arachne

Charles Henri Ford has written some of the strangest—and yet most compelling—haiku in the language. His occupation is not with haiku sensibility, however received, but with his own full-blown sense of the dramatic, couched in a awareness of the classical themes. The results are unlike anything else (Catchword Papers, 1986).

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 Jim Kacian, and are used with permission.

Large head on the
Crocodile’s neck. Un-
Mitigated reality.

Mirrors without
Mirrors. They won’t go any
Further than you take them.

The sorer the joints,
The tighter the will. Are all
These my yellow leaves?

You after you after
You on the streets. Compelling
Sparks of attention.

A realization
of Fantasy, yes. This
Little piece of child.

In struggling to get
On its feet the dung beetle
Knows what it’s doing.