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Book of the Week – Hidden River by Denis Garrison

An excerpt from his Poet Profile in the Haiku Registry – “Denis M. Garrison was born in Iowa. He spent most of his childhood in Japan and his youth in Europe, North Africa, and the western Pacific. He has worn many hats in a varied life: sailor, airman, mechanic, electrician, debt collector, sporting goods salesman, quality control technician, boiler-room operator, bureaucrat, small businessman, priest, poet, editor and publisher. Garrison now lives near Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay with his lovely wife, Deborah. In the 1970s, Garrison edited Towson University’s literary magazine and taught creative writing for Johns Hopkins University’s Free University.”

dark farmyard
a faint glow in the east—
the old rooster sleeps

velvet black night
pulsing with frog song
and fireflies

home at last
our valley yet more lovely
through tears

huddled herd—
their breath rises
and drifts

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.

Denis Garrison

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. I particularly enjoyed

    your face, in the
    leafing orchard
    pearl among emeralds

    It reminds me strongly of one of my favourite paintings, William Leech’s Woman with a Sunshade, in the National Gallery of Ireland.

    Another stand-out for me in this lovely book is

    end of day—
    a slice of salmon pink glass
    where the pond should be

    The surreal image knocks my multi-coloured socks off.

  3. I enjoyed reading this book very much. These are my favorites:
    1)
    a cool wind
    from the old oak
    a loud crack *reminded me of last years winter in East Texas. We had a deep freeze, and lots of tree branches cracked.
    2)
    spring forest
    bare branches and blossoms
    that awkward time *reminded me of junior high days, maybe a first dance 🙂
    3)
    velvet black night
    pulsing with frog song *a deep moonless, summer night, in my back yard!
    and fireflies
    4)
    October rain
    the boulevard paved
    in red and gold *just a stunning visual

    Thank you for sharing.

  4. Thanks again, Dan.

    These made a sweet read. I liked:

    peahens cry out
    the end of meditation
    floors to scrub

    graying beneath
    morning glories
    old clay pots

    hidden river
    the willows cannot help
    but tell

    But I did wonder who the “Robert Blyth” was, cited in the introduction….. Reginald Blyth of Haiku fame or imagist poet Robert Bly? Any clues?

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