Zen Poetry, the Penguin Book of

This is a nice collection of Chinese and Japanese poetry in English translation--not only haiku, but all the works are haiku-esque in their brevity and style. After an excellent introduction explaining the Zen aesthetic of suggestion rather than depiction come four sections of poetry in English translation: Chinese Poems of Enlightenment and Death; Poems of the Japanese Zen Masters; Japanese Haiku; and Shikichi Takahashi, Contemporary Japanese Master. The poems are complemented by 14 black and white reproductions of Eastern paintings also demonstating the Zen influence in which detail is suggested rather than portrayed.One might quibble about what is missing--apparently nothing from China after the southern Sung dynasty, or about the proportions of Japanese to Chinese work, or the inclusion of so much by a single modern master. But to do so would be to miss the point, and certainly to fail to bring a Zen sensibility to the collection as a whole. And here the introduction is invaluable--not only in explaining the selection made, but more importantly discussing the sensibility required. Certainly, for many Westerners, Zen is at best inscrutable and at worst commonplace; and they may see a haiku like Onitsura's likewise: Autumn wind--/across the fields/faces. Lucien Stryk has a very nifty comparison of this haiku with a short poem of Ezra Pound's which reveals its immediacy, and suggests an approach of thought that is absolutely necessary to the understanding of this poetry. All in all, a very worthwhile product. ...