haiku novels, criticism and translations
by David G. Lanoue
reviews - order - about me - about haiku novels
Haiku Wars (2009). A love story, a comedy, a mystery ... a glimpse into the quirky world of international haiku with a dash of Buddhist enlightenment. Though "any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental," insiders will have fun figuring out exactly who is who, while other readers will simply enjoy—and chuckle. This (I think!) is the world's first novel narrated by a ferret.
Laughing Buddha (2004). A wild trip to the Old Japan of geisha, samurai and mad, moonstruck poets. Haiku Guy (below) addressed the question: How to write haiku? Laughing Buddha goes a step further, exploring how one might keep writing it without allowing logic and the urge to analyze nip it in the bud. The village poet Buck-Teeth (first introduced in Haiku Guy) grapples with a writer's block that sneaks into the novel as a flesh-and-blood ninja intent upon killing him, killing poetry. Can the author in today's New Orleans travel to Old Japan in time to save Buck-Teeth? Save haiku? Read and find out!
Haiku Guy (2000). Part haiku primer, part love story, part coming-of-age journey—in this little novel of inspired madness anything can happen: characters from New Orleans time-travel to Old Japan; a village poet from Old Japan wanders Bourbon Street. Through it all, the author's Thursday afternoon writing group comments on and interferes with the unfolding action like would-be Olympian gods. This first "haiku novel" of mine has now appeared in several countries (see below).
Pure Land Haiku (2004). The culmination of twenty years of translation, meditation and research, this critical book examines the haiku poet Kobayashi Issa in relation to the Pure Land Buddhism to which he was devoted.
The Distant Mountain: The Life and Haiku of Kobayashi Issa (2009) presents 162 of Issa's haiku in English and Hindi, with comments.
Issa: Cup-of-Tea Poems (1991) presents 450 of Issa's haiku in seasonal order.
Haiku Guy goes global...
Haiku Guy : Bulgarian — Haiku Guy : Serbian — Haiku Guy : French — Haiku Guy : Japanese
Laughing Buddha, Bulgarian-style...
Kobayashi Issa Archive and save the songs
-->>>>>>> RANDOM HAIKU <<<<<<<--
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