Book-of-the-Week

Book of the Week: some breath

verhart_somebreathvcover

Max Verhart has been a champion of English-language haiku in Europe for more than two decades. This beautiful tiny chapbook (from Wim Lofver’s Radish series, 1999) gives the flavor of his early work.

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.





some breath
floats away—captured
in a bubble


a sigh of wind
puts life into some dust
and lets go again



just looking
who cares who I am—
and when


sparrow starling magpie
for each the twig has
an intimate balance



no other sound
the church bell rings out
through the Milky Way


along the sky
a swarm of dots on the move
to somewhere

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. my favourite book of this series, perhaps because Max handed me a copy of it when we were in London attending the World Haiku Conference in 2000. Such a light touch to Max’s poetry. So light, it’s almost not there, but indeed it is.

  2. Max, this brings me back to Oxford walking by ruins and stone walls. That was my first international haiku conference. I bought so many books, I had to sent a box back to Japan, but your chapbook was so light I could carry it my a pocket.

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