Book of the Week: Rain Falling Quietly

Edward Rielly wrote this meditative book (Wind Chimes Minibook, 1985) partly in thrall to Basho’s Oku no Hosomichi, which he quotes and to which his poems respond.

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.

Haiku featured in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by Jim Kacian, following a concept first explored by Tom Clausen, and are used with permission.

rain falling quietly—
I let the maples
be my overcoat

thinking about Abutsu
while my mother picks flowers
for father’s grave


winter comes,
white flowers blooming
on my window

shading my eyes
while the stalks of oats
ripen each other


turning a corner
i come upon a poet writing
under a tree

in the middle of the stream
a great black bass hangs in the air,
while I write my haiku