Haiku: This Other World

Julia Wright lauded her father's "tender, unassuming and gentle lines" of haiku. I think she felt the writing of these poems gave Richard Wright balance (in the last two years of his life) while fighting illness and suffering the death of his mother. Miss Wright has written beautiful, perceptive and loving words in her Introduction to the collection of haiku; I also am grateful to (Mrs.) Ellen Wright for the cover photograph (clik to hardcover edition): "Native Son, seeing from Mississippi clear to Paris in spring-time. Black Boy, self-aware, your portrait holds me, stirring these sad reveries." (mcH) It is my feeling that the "counting of syllables" CAN be an exercise for healing. I promise, you will be delving into this book countless times. Haiku & senryu . . . each brings delight because inevitably the reader's imagination will be triggered by just one word, or phrase, or aroused feelings. Some believe the 'Haiku moment' comes from using words that "do not depend on metaphors & symbols." The INTENT is to EXPRESS the 'AH-NESS.' However it happens, read through this legacy from Richard Wright and you will experience sheer pleasure. "The low of a cow Answers a train's long whistle In the summer dusk." 817 haiku were chosen for publication by Wright from the 4000 he wrote during his illness while exiled in France. I may not follow the 'correct' study method but readers who also write haiku will recognize certain stages of progression, and repetition of certain subjects. Wright wrote often about sparrows, crows, snow, loneliness, magnolias, death, scarecrows, the moon. The following is an amusing favorite that is considered "senryu": "It is so hot that The scarecrow has taken off All his underwear!" REVIEWER mcHAIKU rarely indicates that you should avoid reading something BUT in a positive spirit, I feel qiuite free to urge you to MAKE THIS BOOK A PART OF YOUR LIFE.

I guess it's common to blacklist somebody into a certain genre based upon their tendencies and this goes for Richard Wright as well. An outsider could easily peg him into the circle of afro-centric writers who concentrate on little but racial and cultural indentity and the misfortunes of such minorities. I may have hastily done this myself but for this book. In "Haiku" Wright is at peace with all the earthly elements and the beauty and elegance of these poems are magnanimous and everpresent. Not as some haughty didactic professing his pansophistic knowledge, but as a keen observer absolved of bodily hubris: ("I am nobody:/A red sinking autumn sun/Took my name away."). That is afterall, the crux of haiku, to leave the body for naturalistic tendencies and we see this throughout the book "Dazzling summer sun!/But the smell of the past comes/With rain upon the dust.". These are not the words of an old man feebly writing his last words but rather a man in his final days writing beautifully, as if he were new to the surprise and satisfaction of getting the written word down on paper "The parade has gone,/But the pounding drums still sway/The magnolias." A fine, fine collection, I don't know of a better modern book of haiku than this. In addition to the poetry there is a section of notes indicating where some of the poems originally appeared and explication of several of their meanings and relations to other texts. The afterword gives a thorough, though basic, schooling on the history and uses of haiku in its many permutations and the foreward by his daughter is worth the price of the book itself.

Haiku, by nature, must be concise. There is no room for clutter, no place to fumble around in the sludge of wordiness and ineffective structure. For those who appreciate haiku not only for its simple beauty but for its Zen-inspired origins, this book is providing me with countless hours of enlightened experience and expanded imagination. These haiku were selected from many more written during the author's "French exile." Although Wright's tone and style is directed to an extent by the editor who selected these specific haiku, the book taken as a whole can be seen as having a certain unity.Repetition is one feature of the haiku that I found interesting throughout the book. It helped to unify the various tones that are exhibited in the haiku. Haiku, as explained in the afterword, uses nature as a method of conveying the author's enlightenment. The use of nature in this book is obvious, yet so integrated that I could read it and explore the mood. The motif of loneliness or aloneness is possibly the single most unifying device in the collection which also channels Wright's style. This could be a reflection of Wright's disposition during the exile.When reading this book for the first time, I read it like I would do a book: taking in the words, the flow, the subtle tones and exploring in a linear manner, from front to back. I appreciated these haiku's surface texture: the diction, the poignant images depicted, the beauty exercised in brevity. However, as I discovered, haiku offers much more than that. After I had read the Afterword, which gives valuable background on the origins of haiku and insight into Wright's connection with this form of poetry, I decided I must read it many times over. Reading haiku is involving. I found a certain joy in finally recognizing the Zen value, the expanding on my perceptions of life.

A distinguished African-American writer goes to France and adopts a traditional Japanese literary genre as his own. That, in a sentence, is the story behind "Haiku: This Other World," a collection of 817 haiku by Richard Wright. But this book is more than just an extraordinary cross-cultural tour-de-force; it is the incandescent testament of a truly visionary artist.The haiku genre sounds like a simple poetic format: three lines, the first and third containing five syllables, the second containing seven. Wright used this format to create poetic gems of great power and variety. Many of his haiku employ an anthropomorphizing technique in which various phenomena are endowed with awareness and emotion: " The sudden thunder / Startles the magnolias / To a deeper white" (#228).His language is often startling in its raw earthiness, and often the haiku are touched with humor or gentle tragedy: "Two flies locked in love / Were hit by a newspaper / And died together" (#486). Wright often uses memorable poetic imagery, and many of his poems invite the reader to partake of a sort of altered state of consciousness: "Standing in the field / I hear the whispering of / Snowflake to snowflake" (#489).The tone of the book is often melancholy. This collection reminded me of the work of two other great American poets: Emily Dickinson and Stephen Crane. Like those two, Wright is a sort of secular prophet whose visions of the world point to deeper, and often unsettling, truths. This book is an artistic triumph, and its posthumous publication is an enduring tribute to this great writer.