Book of the Week – Once Around the Sun: One Hundred Haiku by Graham High
From Haikupedia: “Graham High (born Graham John High, April 3, 1948, Isleworth, West London, U.K.), visual artist, both painter and sculptor, haiku poet, editor, and publisher. A member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors since 1994, High has enjoyed a 25-year career as an animatronic model designer working on more than 40 feature films, including Aliens, Babe, the Harry Potter series, The English Patient, Willow, and Labyrinth. His work has been shown widely in the U.K. and abroad, especially for the Natural History Museum, where he was employed from 1974 to 1983. High joined the British Haiku Society in 1999 and served as editor of Blithe Spirit (2005–2008) and as BHS president (2013–2016). He ran RAM Publications, an independent publishing house, from 2000 to 2013. High is the author of nine haiku collections and one haibun collection and served as editor of BHS members’ anthologies in River (2005) and Light (2006) as well as other BHS publications. His many awards include first place in the 2012 Turtle Light Press Haiku Chapbook Contest for The Window that Closes. He resides in London and Norfolk, U.K.”
Once Around the Sun was published by Ram Publications in 2004.
Following are a few selected poems from the book:
first hint of colour –
a mist of nascent buds
tints the naked trees—
summer poems –
reading the words over
the fly’s shoulder—
after the end
of the thunder, the end
of the rainbow—
the cat stretches
as the sun stretches
on the evening lawn—
party over
one forgotten firework
still to be lit
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 the THF Digital Librarian Kenneth Pearson and are used with permission.
Comments (2)
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a particularly enjoyable and relevant collection.
Kanpai
Thanks Kenneth. An enjoyable read, including:
taking turns –
bird song and
landing aircraft
(…for those of us living under the very wide stack circle around Heathrow)
cool clear rain
so vital to the planet
can’t you wait till Monday
summer poems –
reading the words over
the fly’s shoulder