The Art of Haiku
Stephen Addiss Shambala Press Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman If you enjoy short poems or delightful visual art,"The Art of Haiku," by Stephen Addiss, is for you. It was my first introduction to haiga, a form of visual art specifically created to accompany haiku. Addiss illustrated his book with exemplary poems and samples of visual works created to accompany them, stressing the point that they were created to be enjoyed together. In this book, Addiss traced the history of short-form poetry in Japanese society, beginning with tanka, a five-line form poem popular in the previous millennium and continued into the present day, and contrasted it with the Chinese style poetry which was popular in the imperial court. He included short biographies of the three acknowledged masters of haiku, Basho (17th century), Buson (18h century) and Issa (19th century). The chapters on these three include illustrations of their artwork, as do the sections on Zen poets and early 20th- century haiku poets. He included some commentary on Masaoki Shiki, sometimes noted as a fourth great master of haiku.
He ended the work at World War II, stating that haiku has since become a worldwide phenomenon. He stated that a description of haiku written in recent years would fill another book. I found The Art of Haiku a delightful read.. Reviewer Ray Zimmerman may be reached at znaturalist@gmail.com.
Kommentare