Haiku Survival

Post date: Jan 21, 2014 8:48:29 PM

Yet another new addition to the “Poems About Haiku” section of the Poems by Others page is an excerpt from Robert Hass’s “Songs to Survive the Summer.” I share four verses from this 123-verse long poem (each verse is three lines) from his 1981 book, Praise (and speaking of the haiku image, I highly recommend Hass’s essay, “Images,” from his book of essays, Twentieth-Century Pleasures). For good measure, I've also added the inimitable short poem, “Silence,” by William Carlos Williams, also on the Poems by Others page. It’s not about haiku, thus not in that section, but the poem is very haiku-like in its simplicity, concision, and its careful focus on the image. It also reminds me of a visual poem by E. E. Cummings that can be read as “silence is a looking bird, the turning edge of life, inquiry before snow.”