Book of the Week: Pieces of Eight – Haiku Offerings Along the Eight-Fold Path
From the Introduction: “Pieces of Eight” are merely small tokens dropped into the offering of life, and signaling a small payment for life’s unavoidable stresses. They are not more, they are not less. They follow a circular, and repetitive, pattern. It is the Buddha’s pattern, which, if followed, will establish life patterns of patience, awareness, compassion, reality, and peace. The author, Jerry Ball states “The haiku that I am offering here are little pin pricks of reality. They are not reality, but they remind me that there is a reality to be pursued.”
Samples of his haiku include:
his chin on his fist
a boy selling newspapers
in the winter rain
a man with a mop
wiping away the spring rain
from the temple steps
summer morning
the old dog seems to know
the length of its leash
autumn wind
the rhythmic swinging
of an unlatched door
You can read the entire book in the THF Digital Library.
Do you have a chapbook published in 2015 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.
This Post Has 7 Comments
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What a great collection!
Living next to the majestic Mountains of Mourne, this one particularly resonated…
snow on the mountain
making reservations
to see a castle
Thank you for sharing.
marion
A lovely book by a true gentleman. I have this book from 2009, when I became acquainted with Jerry in Terrigal, NSW.
Hi Alan, I was thinking of featuring your poetry and writings in a future Librarian’s Cache – Poet of the Month feature. Please let me know if this is ok with you.
Dan
Yes, that’s great! Yes, that would be fine!
Did you mean from one of these?
https://area17.blogspot.com/2020/06/recent-haiku-poetry-collections-by-alan.html
Or from Does Fish-God Know, although I don’t have a pdf anymore:
https://www.amazon.com/Does-Fish-God-Know-Alan-Summers/dp/1479211044/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=does+fish-god+know+alan+summers&qid=1616501383&sr=8-1
warmest regards,
Alan
Thanks Alan, the blogspot article will be useful and I will also include some articles from the Haiku Foundation website where your works are featured:
https://thehaikufoundation.org/?s=Alan+Summers
Dan
Wow, thank you! Much appreciated.
warmest regards,
Alan
A very beautiful book, thank you!
Alan Summers
co-founder, Call of the Page