Kagero Nikki, translated here as The Gossamer Years, belongs to the same period as the celebrated Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikuibu. This remarkably frank autobiographical diary and personal confession attempts to describe a difficult relationship as it reveals two tempestuous decades of the author's unhappy marriage and her growing indignation at rival wives and mistresses. Too impetuous to be satisfied as a subsidiary wife, this beautiful (and unnamed) noblewoman of the Heian dynasty protests the marriage system of her time in one of Japanese literature's earliest attempts to portray difficult elements of the predominant social hierarchy. A classic work of early Japanese prose, The Gossamer Years is an important example of the development of Heian literature, which, at its best, represents an extraordinary flowering of realistic expression, an attempt, unique for its age, to treat the human condition with frankness and honesty. A timeless and intimate glimpse into the culture of ancient Japan, this translation by Edward Seidensticker paints a revealing picture of married life in the Heian period.

This classic book is a collection and analysis of Japanese haiku in the English language. The Haiku is a brief poetic form expressing a moment of insight. No foreign form since the sonnet has so fascinated and challenged the poets of the English-speaking world. Yet no scholar or critic, until now, has undertaken a definitive study of the problems of writing haiku in English. This book, the first of its kind, examines English language haiku in the light of Japanese form. Author Joan Giroux explicates the meaning and history of the Japanese haiku, its cultural background the creative process which gives it birth and the technical devices developed by Japanese poets over the centuries. Examples by classic and contemporary poets, including Basho and Buson, Shiki and Hastutaro, are given Romanized Japanese and in English translation. Poems, in English, from early efforts by Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens to work of contemporaries like James Hackett, are discussed and evaluated. Wherever possible, comparisons are made, contrast indicated and suggestions given, with a rare sensitivity to the poetic possibilities of both languages and keen appreciation of the unique qualities of both cultures.

American Haiku: New Readings explores the history and development of haiku by American writers, examining individual writers. In the late nineteenth century, Japanese poetry influenced through translation the French Symbolist poets, from whom British and American Imagist poets, Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, T. E. Hulme, and John Gould Fletcher, received stimulus. Since the first English-language hokku (haiku) written by Yone Noguchi in 1903, one of the Imagist poet Ezra Pound’s well-known haiku-like poem, “In A Station of the Metro,” published in 1913, is most influential on other Imagist and later American haiku poets. Since the end of World War II many Americans and Canadians tried their hands at writing haiku. Among them, Richard Wright wrote over four thousand haiku in the final eighteen months of his life in exile in France. His Haiku: This Other World, ed. Yoshinobu Hakutani and Robert L. Tener (1998), is a posthumous collection of 817 haiku Wright himself had selected. Jack Kerouac, a well-known American novelist like Richard Wright, also wrote numerous haiku. Kerouac’s Book of Haikus, ed. Regina Weinreich (Penguin, 2003), collects 667 haiku. In recent decades, many other American writers have written haiku: Lenard Moore, Sonia Sanchez, James A. Emanuel, Burnell Lippy, and Cid Corman. Sonia Sanchez has two collections of haiku: Like the Singing Coming off the Drums (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998) and Morning Haiku (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010). James A. Emanuel’s Jazz from the Haiku King (Broadside Press, 1999) is also a unique collection of haiku. Lenard Moore, author of his haiku collections The Open Eye (1985), has been writing and publishing haiku for over 20 years and became the first African American to be elected as President of the Haiku Society of America. Burnell Lippy’s haiku appears in the major American haiku journals, Where the River Goes: The Nature Tradition in English-Language Haiku (2013).Cid Corman is well-known not only as a haiku poet but a translator of Japanese ancient and modern haiku poets: Santoka, Walking into the Wind (Cadmus Editions, 1994).

In the past hundred years, haiku has gone far beyond its Japanese origins to become a worldwide phenomenon—with the classic poetic form growing and evolving as it has adapted to the needs of the whole range of languages and cultures that have embraced it. This proliferation of the joy of haiku is cause for celebration—but it can also compel us to go back to the beginning: to look at haiku’s development during the centuries before it was known outside Japan. This in-depth study of haiku history begins with the great early masters of the form—like Basho, Buson, and Issa—and goes all the way to twentieth-century greats, like Santoka. It also focuses on an important aspect of traditional haiku that is less known in the West: haiku art. All the great haiku masters created paintings (called haiga) or calligraphy in connection with their poems, and the words and images were intended to be enjoyed together, enhancing each other, and each adding its own dimension to the reader’s and viewer’s understanding. Here one of the leading haiku scholars of the West takes us on a tour of haiku poetry’s evolution, providing along the way a wealth of examples of the poetry and the art inspired by it.

In Haiku, the Gentle Art of Disappearing, a renowned Irish poet shows us how haiku may be used as a powerful tool for spiritual interpenetration. This implies that we divest ourselves of the ever-chattering mind, shed the voracious ego and enjoy momentary glimpses of unity with natural phenomena. In the companion volume, Haiku Enlightenment, he further explores these thoroughly delightful experiences and invites us to disappear! Haiku is dynamically focussed on the present, from season to season, from day to day, from hour to hour, from second to second. But how illusory, how fleeting is that present moment? How caught up is it with the past, with the future? Can we stop its flow? Are there more ways than one of experiencing its essence? If we experience a moment intensely enough, might we disappear? Surprises await those readers who may have considered haiku to be nothing more than an innocuous three-line poem. A renowned poet shares his experience of haiku and its potential to surprise us again and again into a sudden awakening and thus to a deeper sense of what it is to be truly alive. His remarkably refreshing insights have delighted confreres around the world.

Sometimes funny, sometimes touching, this adoption story, Won Ton, told entirely in haiku, is unforgettable. Nice place they got here. Bed. Bowl. Blankie. Just like home! Or so I've been told. Visiting hours! Yawn. I pretend not to care. Yet -- I sneak a peek. So begins this beguiling tale of a wary shelter cat and the boy who takes him home.

Have a haiku momentwhen your mind stops and your heart moves. Writing haiku offers the chance to honor, hold, and fully experience a fleeting moment that takes you out of yourself, a moment that hints at the deeper unity that lies beneath the surface of things. from Chapter One In this encouraging guide for both beginning and experienced haiku writers, Margaret D. McGee shows how writing haiku can be a consciously spiritual practice for seekers of any faith tradition or no tradition. Drawing from her experience as a spiritual retreat leader and published haiku writer, McGee takes the mystery and intimidation out of beginning to write haiku. For those already on their way, she provides helpful hints and exercises to broaden and deepen both your haiku artistry and your appreciation of haiku as part of your spiritual life. With humor and encouragement, she offers step-by-step exercises for both individuals and writing groups, and shows how haiku can help you: Pay attention to the world around you to connect with sacred moments Overcome fear and self-doubt to access your innate creativity Explore and use haiku together with spiritual practices in your own faith tradition Make haiku a spiritual part of your daily routine