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Book of the Week: Trawlers

savage_trawlers

Sam Savage, before his acclaim as a novelist, tried his hand at numerous tasks, including letterpress printer and haiku poet. He set this first volume, from Hardscrabble Press in 1999, himself.

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

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


Winter idleness- with each gust the moored boats creak
Oysters rattling onto the deck the scrape of boots the cold
All the boats out the pilings are white with droppings in the heat
On the glaring sea shrimp boats in the haze the heat
One whole day sound of the boat engine sound of the waves
Pulling a crab pot hand over hand the swirling water
Returning trawler- in a net by the wheelhouse onions, potatoes
Again no money- a crescent moon through the needles of the pine
One sky... horizon to horizon ten thousand waves
Even at sea yellow butterflies of autumn
At the end of the day a cool breeze between two buildings
Becoming dusk... into the moored darkness water splashing from a bilge
Monotonous recorded voice on the weather band- the sound of the wind
The vast ocean- the nearest things are stars

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Dear Tom, Thank you for selecting Trawlers by Sam Savage. Good to reread his haiku today. Comparing my copy to THF digital version, the first thing I noticed was how well the print copy translated to the online version. The texture of the endpapers is so lovely.

    Thanks to all, these posts must take some time. Ellen

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