Book-of-the-Week

Book of the Week: fish pond moon

baranski_fishpondmooncoverJohnny Baranski is best known for his protest haiku, especially warning of the dangers of nuclear energy proliferation in all its various forms. This attractive chapbook (sunburst matchbooks, 1986) captures another side of him altogether, a lighter mood as he takes us camping and fishing. The book, like all in this series, is hand-scripted and -assembled.

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

Do you have a chapbook published 2009 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, following a concept first explored by Tom Clausen, and are used with permission.


dusky twilight—
a full moon begins to fill
the empty lantern


from a moonlit stump
the frog is outsprung
by its shadow


they're biting tonight
wherever I try the fishpond
mosquitoes


fresh minnow bait—
out of a moonlit pail
I choose the brightest


a full moon
on the motionless fishpond
it begins to hail


just about the full moon
empty-handed fisherman
tells his deaf wife

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. I love this book! I wish more poets would hand-script their books. I especially like how “they’re biting everywhere” irrupts the neat syntax of pond fishing. Thanks for posting ( and writing).

  2. I really enjoyed these and others in the book. Makes me want to take up fishing, Thank you for sharing.

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