Little Jewels--Haiku

If you like haiku or are merely curious about the art, dive into this book. It traces the origin of the form in English from Ezra Pound’s “In a Station at the Metro” through the effusive Beats (Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsburg) to contemporary masters of these powerful small poems. In the introduction, Billy Collins describes his love for these small gems and unlike many of the other artists included here, he writes in the familiar 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. 

Here are a few of my favorite haiku included in the collection. But alas, there were so many good ones, it was hard to choose a small sample:


passport check

my shadow waits

across the border                            --George Swede