Book of the Week: My Chinese Haiku

Andrew T. Roy explains in his introduction that he “wrote a good many of these haiku during [his] forty-two year stay on mainland China and in Hong Kong as a missionary, from 1931 to 1972.” This small, holographic, hand-bound chapbook (designed and printed by Rosemary C. Anderson, 2001) was in honor of Dr. Roy’s 97th birthday. There is a Chinese quality to the poems, as they are perhaps slightly more expansive and philosophical than is usual in Japanese (or Western) examples.

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

Do you have a chapbook published 2010 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 THF president THF president Jim Kacian, and are used with permission.

On black silk water
the Li River bears mountains
flat and upside down.
The hawk floats, resting
on the sun-warmed lift of air
until a hare runs.
Melting snow slides down
the golden temple roof tiles
and softly plummets.