Book of the Week: The Sax Man's Case

Anthony J. Pupello was an active force on the haiku scene in the 1990s, and this volume, from Red Moon Press in 1998, contains much of his strongest 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.

All haiku in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by Tom Clausen, and are used with permission.

Valentine's Day—
hothouse roses
in full bloom

stop sign:
the calypso man's
insistent rhythm


Brooklyn Bridge—
lull in the traffic
brings wind sounds

hairdresser's tale
with every curler,
a new twist


simmering stew:
my wife's old boyfriend
comes to dinner

almost eighty—
the droop of her cigarette ash
about to fall


pre-op testing—
the nurse's blouse
unbuttoned

Soho gallery—
in the sound-proof room,
the Hokusai print

Chinatown tour
the vegetable peddler fans
the buses's fumes

old jazz man—
a riff in sixteenth time
up in smoke

emergency room
the unseen phone
rings and rings

crescent
moon
the
bluesman
bends
the
note
again

music
school
the 
mother's
off
key 
slap

winter
solstice
how
softly
the
computer
crashes

before the reading:
the poet's smoky breath
into mine

old-age home
the musician's cane
keeps time

seaside breeze
bringing the mist in
with the morning paper