Book of the Week – Torii Haiku: Profane to a Sacred Life by David H. Rosen

David trained as a psychiatrist at the Langley Porter Institute in San Francisco. As a professor at Texas A & M University, his research interests include analytical psychology, the psychology of religion, depression, suicidology, healing, creativity, and the psychosocial, psychiatric, and human aspects of medicine.

In the Foreword, Johnny Baranski writes – “Gates. There are gates to keep us out and gates to keep us in. Garden gates, prison gates, gates to sacred places. There are healing gates like the Fountain Gate in old Jerusalem near the pool of Siloam whose waters cured the blind man in John’s Gospel (7:9). Come walk with me now through a gate to healing moments, the sacred moments that are David Rosen’s haiku.”

Additional chapbooks in the digital library by David include Clouds and More Clouds, Lost in the Long White Cloud: Finding My Way Home and The Tao of Elvis

Sometimes I listen
at times I talk
but always I sing

Tomorrow, I will be a marigold

Slug. . .
mentor for moving
through the world

Gnat. . .
thanks for reminding me of
our short lives

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 2018 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.