Book of the Week: Fire Blossoms

The Book of the Week, chosen from The Haiku Foundation Digital Library, is Fire Blossoms, The Birth of Haiku Noir, by American poet Denis Garrison. Without getting bogged down in overlapping definitions, we can say, with Denis, that haiku noir are haiku-like poems from the dark side. Such poems can emerge from everyday life, but Denis’s haiku noir are often shaped by his experiences of war, and effectively plunge the reader into that alien arena.

sights before unseen
and sounds never heard before—
new world born in flames

 

the sleeping giant
wakes from his bed of comfort
and takes up his sword.

 

peering from the street
the mailman must know too much
he’ll have to go too

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

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Haiku featured in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by THF Digital Librarian Garry Eaton, and are used with permission