Featured Content

Book of the Week: Stallion’s Crag: A Book of Haiku and Haibun by Welsh Poet Ken Jones

His biography in the Living Haiku Anthology writes that Ken Jones, (18 May 1930 – 2 August 2015), was not only a haiku poet but that he also played an important part in educating others about haibun. He was a founder of the UK Network of Socially Engaged Buddhists and after many years of Buddhist training, he became a Zen and Ch’an practitioner and teacher.

George Marsh wrote that Ken “reaches back into history, literature and art for his images, and into Buddhist philosophy for the expression of his compassion … uniting all these themes there is the wit, the style, the insouciance of the writer.” Additional books by Ken in the Digital Library include The Parsley Bed, Beyond Mindfulness, Arrow of Stones, Bog Cotton, Ken’s Corner and Stone Leeks.

Bright morning
scraping a new blade
over my bony cheek

Pushing my reflection
this wheelbarrow
full of rain

To you, telephone pole
No. A 97381
I tip my hat

“WYAU AR WERTH”
hidden in weeds:-
“Eggs for Sale”

You can read the entire book in the THF Digital Library and please share your favorite poem from the book with us.

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.

Ken Jones

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. This is my introduction to haibun. I am so impressed with Ken Jone’s writing that I must get a copy of this book. Thank you for featuring it as Book of the Week.
    Brilliant!

    2. Hi Jenny,

      Ken’s wife is an even stronger writer in my opinion, and others. I see that Noragh Jones is Irish/Welsh which explains why she is such an incredible writer! 🙂

      I had the privilege of reading and performing with them at the book launch of an anthology of Welsh haiku on one occasion, and met both on a number of other occasions.

      Stone Circles
      haiku and haiku prose
      Noragh Jones
      Pilgrim Press 2004
      https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/a16dcfc9baf0bf3c81b92aad687d42f9.pdf

      Modern Haiku book review:
      https://www.modernhaiku.org/bookreviews/NoraghJones2004.html

      It was also a book of the week on Haiku Foundation too.

      Also this is a must have book!

      The Dog of Darkness
      haibun
      Noragh Jones
      Alba Publishing 2017

      Sadly both husband and wife are deceased. We have lost so many.

      kindest regards,
      Alan

  2. I met Ken a few times through the Network of Engaged Buddhists, great to see his work here. The book you have linked to at the THF library is a different one through, do you have the right link?

Comments are closed.

Back To Top