Book of the Week: Shadows in the Empty Road

Lewis Sanders edited The Red Pagoda in the 1980s, which reflected his strong interest in classical Japanese culture and nature-based poetry. It’s a bit surprising, then, to encounter his own collections, such as this one (adVance Press, 1985), which, though infused with natural imagery, are much more engaged with the human condition, and the interpretation of those natural images as human metaphors.

You can read the entire book in the THF Digital Library.

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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.

Fog in the hollow
   one star
      beams its message

How like Sodom—
the man dabbing perfume
from an owl-shaped bottle

This heat!
not one black dragonfly
in sight

No new moon to point at
   no fog
      to shroud the old frog pond

Green Corn moon;
burying my father
without a tear

Honeysuckle—
thinking of the city-folks
back home