February Books: Poetry and Biography

 I read some excellent poetry last month and some biographical work about poets.

The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa by Robert Hass

This is an excellent book, focusing on three haiku masters, each living at different times, although the last two overlap a bit. There is a section devoted to each, following the same format. They begin with a short biography which is followed by about 100 of their haiku in translation. Each section concludes with a prose work by the poets. Following these three sections, there is a chapter describing Basho’s thoughts on haiku. The book includes cultural references and discusses some of the problems with trying to translate into English when the implicit knowledge that Japanese people have is missing. To include such information would make the poems too wordy. There’s also a chapter on the evolution of haiku. This is a book I’ll keep and refer to again and again.

Seasons of Light by Dermot O’Brien

A collection of Irish haiku. It's interesting to read haiku from other cultures, as the form evolves and people adapt it to fit their own creative visions. I love the cover art on this book.

The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai (Li Po) by Ha Jin

This is a biography of Chinese poet Li Bai, known in the West as Li Po. He lived from 701 to 762 and was influenced by Daoist thought. His work was popular and well-known during his lifetime, and that continues today. His work is still taught to Chinese schoolchildren.

The book is well-written and reads like a novel—not surprising, since the author is a novelist. I’m glad I found it in the ‘new to library’ category in the e-book section of the library website!

This is Yarrow by Tara Bergin

This poetry collection was new to the e-book library this month. I enjoyed it. The poems were quite varied in subject matter. This is the description from the library site:

‘They are inhabited by characters who seem at first widely different from one another, yet share nervous energy, a troubled state of mind: ‘I am unwell, little crow, / I am unwell and far from home / where longing lives in my house’. In This is Yarrow Bergin gathers language from a wide range of sources and places to create a music and vision entirely her own.’

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The Book of Nature: Wordsworth’s Poetry on Nature by William Wordsworth

This is another poetry collection that appeared in the e-book library in February. It’s exactly what the title says it is and a very nice collection.

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