Book-of-the-Week

Book of the Week: mosquitos and moonlight

gilliland

Robert Gilliland still publishes the occasional haiku in the best journals, but he was most active in the mid- to late 90s, when this volume, his strongest, was released by Polliwog Press (1999).

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.

All haiku in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by Tom Clausen, and are used with permission.




hunter's moon—
i jingle his old collar
at the sky


crisp spring morning
spade sound
stirring dormant earth



late afternoon light—
in the clover two bees
trade places


pelting summer rain . . .
a lizard clasps the dry side
of the leaning elm



patch of winter sun—
the mangy cat 
grooming his coat


raindrops
releasing summer
from the sidewalk



lingering heat—
trickle of a sewer pipe 
feeding the creek


tuft of spear grass
that the mowers missed
. . . dragonfly



sudden shower—
a tin roof steams
into the summer sky


autumn wind—
a brown bag still holding
the bottle's shape



potter's field—
the scattered crosses bound
by bluebonnets


pale summer sky—
an oak tree's shadow
fills with cows



a jay's shriek—
and stillness reclaims 
the fallen oak


a cypress parts the creek . . .
the sheen of smooth pebbles
on the sunlit bar



the summer stream . . .
each dry stone
with its dragonfly


fern-lined ledge—
white of the water tumbling
to the pool below



trail's end—
breeze off the Pedernales
creaks in the tall pecans


winding path . . .
deeper into the woods
into the windsound



harvest festival—
in the field a bumper crop
of old pickup trucks


the branch
where the mockingbird sang
—still swaying



from the heart
of a deadfall limb
. . . violets

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Ron, Robert was also my editor for The Heron’s Nest. He also helped me flesh out a long free-verse poem a number of years back. I love his poetry and used a number of haiku from _mosquitoes and moonlight_ when I was involved in The Electronic Poetry Network. I have many favorites from this book, but I suppose my top fave is:

    lingering heat—
    trickle of a sewer pipe
    feeding the creek

    Also, I voted for this poem as my top choice in Jan. 2005 for The Heron’s Nest “Readers’ Choices” Awards:

    Valentine’s Day—
    a cyclist signals
    with a long-stem rose

  2. Some of my favorites of the haiku posted above from mosquitoes and moonlight( by fellow Texan Robert Gilliland) are the following: ” lingering heat—”,” late afternoon light”, ” trail’s end—”, ” winding path”, and the poignant ” potter’s field.” I am glad that
    some of Robert’s work was represented in Haiku In English: The First Hundred Years.
    And this book was listed in the credits.

  3. winding path . . .
    deeper into the woods
    into the windsound

    harvest festival –
    in the field a bumper crop
    of old pickup trucks

    By Robert Gilliland

    I enjoyed reading this post and plan to reread Robert’s book – happy to see it again.

    Some of his poems express so much here in Wisconsin too, where the soybean fields are now gold.

    Thank you,
    Ellen

  5. Wonderful collection of haiku with many fine moments of observation. I also would like to see more of Robert’s work. Robert was my editor at Heron’s Nest and I miss our conversations about Texas and Tasmania.

    This one stays with me for the very different visuals that work so well together…

    autumn wind—
    a brown bag still holding
    the bottle’s shape

  6. I for one have greatly missed Robert’s presences on the haiku scene.

    This is a terrific book, with lovely sketches from his wife. It’s an utter delight to read, and lose yourself into a world that is real, but only real as a haiku writer can do this.

    One of my favorites, amongst an incredible ‘many’:

    frosty moon–
    silver of a possum’s back
    parting the ivy

    .

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