The Haiku Anthology

by Cor van den Heuvel

Book Overview

Originally a Japanese form that flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, haiku has recently experienced tremendous growth in popularity in the English language. The Haiku Anthology, first published in 1974, is a landmark work in modern haiku, honoring a genre of poetry that celebrates simplicity, emotion, and imagery--in which only a few words convey worlds of mystery and meaning. This third edition, now completely revised and updated,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393321185
• ISBN13: 9780393321180
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent nightstand companion

It is very hard to discuss the quality of haiku since its ability to resonate in our emotions through imagery is so subjective. Let me just say that I discovered new poets I never heard of before who made a powerful impression on me. That alone is worth five stars to me.

Absolutely Necessary

The Haiku Anthology is absolutely necessary for anyone considering tackling the writing of haiku in English. I have read it so often that I had to buy another copy as the pages of my original fell out! Like most good things in life, this is best savoured slowly - over and over and over...

A beautiful collection of contemporary haiku

I have not seen a more comprehensive collection of contemporary English-language haiku than Cor van den Heuvel's remarkable anthology. The book presents over 800 poems, and the introductions (the ones from the previous editions are included) give helpful direction to the overwhelmed reader.The greatest beauty of this collection, though, is that you can carry it around with you and open randomly to any page and discover something surprising, exciting, wondrous, even breathtaking.If you think of haiku as silly poems you wrote in elementary school, those three line ditties in a syllable pattern of 5-7-5, then you need this book to purge your preconceptions and demonstrate the many possibilities of the haiku form.

This book is nothing short of magical

Whether you know it well or not much, want to read it or write it, this is THE book to get. Page after page of little moments of magic. I have begun writing haiku because of it. You cannot read it or write it and NOT be quiet and peaceful inside. It requires mindfulness.Myth about 5-7-5 syllable pattern is discussed - a much freer form than I had previously thought. A real gem of a book. Great variety of ideas, styles.

An intro to English-language haiku through its poets.

I have a single poem that appears in this collection of 850 haiku. It represents a decade of work preserved in small press haiku publications and self-published chapbooks. The poem is based on my first parachute jump on June 13, 1982, in Perris, California. What I remember about the jump is intersecting an incredibly sweet silence with the solemnity of sunset filling my eyes. When you read this beautiful book, know that the work--and the included haiku poets--are only the tip of the iceberg.