Book of the Week – Looking Back: A Conversation with George Swede
This Haiku Foundation Online Essay Collection contains photos and articles about George Swede in addition to the interview of George by Philomene Kocher. In the interview, Looking Back: A Conversation with George Swede, George shares his first attempts at writing haiku, how English-language haiku has evolved over the years and other topics.
Additional books that were authored or co-authored by Swede in the digital library include Endangered Metaphors, The Mexican Haiku, North American Haiku and the Role of Haiku in Poetry Therapy.
Be sure to check out his Poet Profile on the Haiku Registry.
Examples of his haiku from Endangered Metaphors:
born with one arm shorter than the other time
the game with
seven billion players
one ball
the holocaust
grafted onto my rootstock
the temperament of trees
heavy dawn snowfall
the coming day’s verbs
changing tense
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.
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Interesting. Many thanks, Dan. I particularly enjoyed the first 60 or so pages of George’s dissertation, notably on rules. Saved to my files…
Thank you for the enlightening article and digital books of this accomplished poet and deep contributor to the haiku community.
Poems that stood out for me from Endangered Metaphors:
from inside the Rembrandt the empty museum
from frog to tadpole
the translation
of my poem
the holocaust
grafted into my rootstock
the temperament of trees