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Book of the Week: Quiet Enough by John Stevenson

In the Foreword, Peggy Willis Lyles writes “Hope is a recurrent theme in Quiet Enough, but it is a hope so modest, pelted, vague, and fragile that it might not exist at all without being called by name. The book itself is a testament to the endurance of that hope.” Quiet Enough won First Prize in the Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards for 2005. There is an article about John and his poetry in the Living Haiku Anthology and be sure to check out the video of John reading from his new book, MY RED: Selected Haiku of John Stevenson.

shooting star
what do fish
see at night?

now that I have
turned off the television
the winter night

a bit of birdsong
before we start
our engines

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 8 Comments

  1. What I look for and admire most in other poets is when they turn my understanding on its head, making me see the world in a fresh & therefore expanded view. Sometimes this comes by a poet noticing and remarking on the unremarkable. John never fails at forcing me to look twice at something that may otherwise be overlooked. His poems also can shock in their absolute ‘rightness.’ When reading his poems I often think, “I knew that,” subconsciously. John elevates it to the conscious. Thanks John, for enlarging my awareness. You always bring the surprise!

  3. Agree with everyone–haiku to read and reread endlessly.
    Thank you, John, and congratulations on My Red!

    Also thanks to Dan for featuring this book!

  5. What I love about John’s poetry is that it exemplifies the quietude as well as the profundity discoverable in simplicity, even in the banal, mundane aspects of day to day living. I adore the new collection!

  6. All John’s books are great especially his newest, My Red. One of my favorite poets!

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