Book of the Week: Seeking Satori

Ann Newell published this sumptuous book to celebrate the memory of her friend, the artist Joyce Jo Bashein (forty branches up publishing, 1985). It is not a book of haiku, but shares its sensibility, and many of the lyrical passages can be read as such. The book concludes with a pair of tanka, and of course Newell went on to publish books of haiku. In this volume we can see her first movement towards the genre.

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.

New birth from old roots,
and the old man laughed and cried,
looking at his son.

Sometimes the sun
shines half a day. Sometimes
I sing half a song.

Even in a storm
the old tree and the old hill
never are parted.

In the silence
leaves fall and I can’t hear
the old brook’s secret.

Myself, one part
of the whole, and then, myself,
one whole part.

A chill from the window.
The gong sounds—
ending and beginning.
Seeking satori,
I become a pine tree.