Book of the Week – Haiku by Dan Campbell
Dear THF community, this is my last post as the THF librarian and I hope you have enjoyed the Book of the Week and Librarian’s Cache features over the last three years. I sure have enjoyed working with Jim Kacian and the other THF staff and volunteers. In addition to his many other THF responsibilities, Jim puts in a lot of time and effort to update the Digital Library so I hope you will donate your support to THF.
For my last post, I would like to share haiku and monoku from my chapbook:
Ancestry.com
my wife’s wildflower
DNA
family photo album –
three generations
of frowns
mwangaza wa mwezi
shines down
on baobab trees
digging my escape tunnel with a teaspoonher
You can read the entire book in the THF Digital Library and please share your favorite poem from the book with us.
Do you have a chapbook published in 2018 or earlier that 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 Dan Campbell and are used with permission.
Comments (13)
Comments are closed.
Thank you, Dan, for all of your great work and for all you do. I echo all these sentiments.
Dan, thanks for all of your hard work, and for being so supportive of New to Haiku. Best wishes for 2024 and beyond!
Thanks, Dan, for curating THF’s library these past few years, which is no small task given its size.
When scarecrow ku appear in other THF venues, I think of you and your scarecrows. Yours, of course, are outstanding in their field.
My favorites from your collection:
the best listeners –
scarecrows and
full moons
windy night – scarecrow waving at the harvest moon
Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow in the “Wizard of Oz” would be proud.
Dear Dan,
Your research, joyful commentary, and recommended reading will be missed. Thank you for volunteering these three years. And I hope we get to read more of your humorous observations of human events.
Dan, just a note to say how deeply appreciated your efforts as THF Librarian have been. You’ve helped me discover gems I may never have found by myself. Thank you very much and good luck for the next stage. I’ll keep an eye out for your haiku.
Happy New Year and new challenges,
Marietta
I sure do appreciate the kind comments, thank you Brad, Keith, John, Pamela, Laurie, Evan and Carol!
Thank you Dan for your time and effort in bringing such pleasure to readers of your books of the week. I do hope the segment will feature again sometime in the future. Wishing you a joyous festive season and all the best for the future.
Hi, Dan,
Thank you for bringing so many creative and worthwhile books to the public eye! I have read many of them from cover to cover and have so often grown in my haiku journey as a result. Several of these books have become favorites and enjoyable ways to spend a quiet afternoon. Best wishes for a happy, healthy and peaceful new year!
Dan–
Thanks for so many great selections and comments! I hope you enjoyed doing this as much as I enjoyed reading it. I look forward to all you may do next, both on features here and in the larger world of haiku. Always love your wit and spirit and ways with words–
Dear Dan,
You are the one who introduced me to humor in haiku! I have favorited your chapbook and I will visit it often. Thank you. Pamela
–– I love your wild imagination and how often you make me laugh and gasp with the sweetest haiku!
albino crow
strutting across
fresh snow
melting my
cold cold heart—
donkey smile
serenade
under the wrong
window
–– I have a cousin who learned she had been adopted at birth and just found my family. We are exploring sepia photos of groups with empty expressions. I love this one:
relative family photo album –
three generations
of frowns
–– I wonder if Esperanza has such a word. Imagine!
on some planets –
there is no word
for war
–– thank you for taking me on your fishing trip!
the beating heart
of the minnow-
moonlight on the hook
–– My favorite monoku for the moment:
the moon and I have our dark sides
some bridges whisper and tell you to jump (pay no heed!)
some languages have dictionaries just for heartbreak
I pity graves near that squeaking gate
Good luck for the future Dan and thanks for all your efforts
Dan, thank you so much for the wide variety of material you have made available from the THF Library. I have benefitted hugely from the serious treatises, enjoyed haiku that I would never have seen otherwise in a lifetime of Mondays, rolled my eyeballs at some collections and saved other links to my favourites.
Also for your fresh, creative and humorous contributions to the renku, the Dialogue and lately re:Virals.
I liked:
mourners —
slow to undo
their embrace
And it seems appropriate somehow….
Hi Dan,
Thanks very much for all your time and efforts as THF librarian. I am grateful.
Best,
Brad