Book of HaikusA compact collection of more than 500 poems from Jack Kerouac that reveal a lesser known but important side of his literary legacy “Above all, a haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi pastorella.”—Jack Kerouac Renowned for his groundbreaking Beat Generation novel On the Road, Jack Kerouac was also a master of the haiku, the three-line, seventeen-syllable Japanese poetic form. Following the tradition of Basho, Buson, Shiki, Issa, and other poets, Kerouac experimented with this centuries-old genre, taking it beyond strict syllable counts into what he believed was the form’s essence. He incorporated his “American” haiku in novels and in his correspondence, notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, and recordings. In Book of Haikus, Kerouac scholar Regina Weinreich has supplemented a core haiku manuscript from Kerouac’s archives with a generous selection of the rest of his haiku, from both published and unpublished sources. |
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Allen American Haiku Angels August Autumn Beat Beat Generation Haikus bird blue Book of Haikus Buddha Buddhist City clouds cold collection comes dawn Desolation Dharma Bums dream dusk early EDITOR'S NOTE empty essay eternity eyes falling fish flowers frog Gary Snyder Ginsberg girl grass gray head Included Introduction Jack Kerouac Japanese JK NOTE June Late afternoon leaf leaves Letter Library light lived Looking Manuscripts midnight mind moon morning mother mountain nature never night Northport notebooks October Paris pine playing poems poetry poets Pops prose published quiet rain Rare reading reference Review road roof rose seasonal selected senryu sleeping snow sound Spring stars summer thought traditional translations trees University waiting Walking wave wind window winter write written wrote yellow York