Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart

I am just reading this book and enjoying it immensely. I am a freelance writer and haiku poet myself. The power and beauty of haiku poetry is explored in depth.The author's interpretation of every poem is explained in a beautiful,evocative way, throughout. This is a wonderful book to relax with, at the end of a busy day or week. You don't have to be an expert or regular follower of haiku to enjoy this book. Would make a memorable gift too.

Listening to the poems speak first,crystalizes thought. Patricia's comments & interpretations afterward add to and are interesting where they differ. Truly all works of art.

not only are the haikus selected poignant and beautiful, but the commentary is sweet and insightful. just a small sampling (some paraphrasing)... "caught in our comfortable habitual thoughts, there is a gap, a crack long enough for the sound of a bird to penetrate us" (listening to nature, being in the present) "pausing is the doorway to awakening" "sky meditation puts us back to our natural state, as vast and open as the sky. all else is just thoughts and feelings, like clouds passing by" "gratitude is necessary in a world yearning for peace"

Haiku Mind contains the best--the most insightful--commentary on haiku since the great works of R. H. Blyth. If you want to know what haiku is about, what a haiku can do, why haiku are important, read this book. Patricia Donegan looks into the heart of haiku by exploring outstanding individual examples with a perceptive, aware, and sensitive eye. The literary essay has never known finer moments.

108 haiku, each a gem , followed by a short comment. The topics range from karma(a white lotus---/the monk decides/to cut it !) to justice(reflected/in the sword's blade/soft summer clouds), and each makes you think and reflect and , with luck, go 'Ah. I see." Good selections, both ancient and modern, as well as cultural, both Japanese and Western. A wonderful book.