The Heart Of Haiku (Kindle Single) (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
Beautifully written, yet sad about the life and poems of the greatest Haiku poet in Japan: Matsuo Bashō. The author is very skillful at arranging the poem and his life event, as well as explaining how and why it was made.Furthermore, it is not only a tiny lovely book about Bashō and Haiku, but also the spirit of Taos, the idea of freedom and the fineness of everything around us: the moon, a flower, a road, the sky, the cloud, a smell, and more than that: the taste of life.I am impressed by this book. Because it is just a quite short book (around 100 pages I guess, because I read it on Kindle so I did not know), but it expresses a lot of ideology and opinion. The most important part, I think is the author wrote it in a very natural way, and "sketched" Bashō with the most honest she could do. This is simple but very excellent. Read it with a cup of tea, or sitting under the tree of sunshine of autumn winds, or you can read it if you suddenly feel exhausted. An appropriately small but enthusiastic and thoughtful introduction to Basho's world and work. I knew nothing of Basho a couple of days ago, but now I think he may just become a fixture in my life. Jane Hirshfield uses Basho's poems to describe his life and his life to give context to his poems, and the prose was just poetic enough to put a smile on my face: wonderful writing. This book was a chance find while searching for something else: God bless serendipity! I'm off now to get to know both Basho and Jane Hirshfield a bit better ...
What do You think about The Heart Of Haiku (Kindle Single) (2011)?
Fascinating story of a major poet and the father of modern haiku. Definitely worth the reading time.
—nfpratiwi
A nice introduction to haiku. I still need to read Robert Haas's book.
—rookie
More a bio of Bashou than a book on haiku in general, but good.
—kwasniewski20
