Poetry Review: This took me forever: 800+ haiku is too many to read straight through -- I could only read a few at a time because they needed to percolate and I needed to ponder. Typically, when reading (not reviewing) poetry, I sample a few here and there, dipping in and out of a book as the spirit strikes. But in this case I deliberately read each in order, and it was worth it; these are wonderful poems. Haiku, The Last Poems of an American Icon (the version I have), is a collection of haiku mostly written in the "traditional" 5/7/5 syllable format, in 1959-60. Many people like this structured format, and these are fantastic examples of that. In part because Japanese syllable count doesn't translate well into English, many haiku poets (in English or Japanese) no longer adhere to the traditional format, and for some the 5/7/5 structure is considered overly confining or old-fashioned. That said, these are well written 5/7/5 haiku, some of the best I've ever seen. Sure, there's some padding here and there in Wright's Haiku, but overall I enjoyed these haiku as is, and Wright shows that a great writer is a great writer. If you want an introduction to haiku (different, perhaps, than your first encounter with haiku in elementary school), this is a good accessible starting point. Obviously Richard Wright comes from his own history, but only a few of haiku reflect an overt social perspective, such as:
What giant spider spun
That gleaming web of fire-escapes
On wet tenements?
or,
After the sermon,
The preacher's voice is still heard
In the caws of crows.
Most address nature in universal and sharp detail:
In the still orchard
A petal falls to the grass;
A bird stops singing.
Rain, crows, trees, mist, scarecrows, magnolias populate these poems. If you want to read English-language haiku, by a great author, with observations that will speak to you, Richard Wright's Haiku is your book. It also contains an Introduction by Wright's daughter, 40 pages of Notes on the Haiku, and a 60 page Afterword that goes into deeper detail about haiku in general and Wright's haiku in particular (this wasn't my favorite explication of haiku, but it was an okay primer).
Now I want to talk to the more experienced or serious haiku readers. Just because his haiku are mostly 5/7/5, doesn't mean these aren't good. Wright is not a dilettante or hobbiest. He shows the influence of Basho and, especially, Issa. He follows Shiki's advice to write haiku on a specific topic over and over to find the perfect (or at least best) iteration; many of the same topics repeat throughout his poems, to their benefit. I'm not going to discuss whether these are haiku or senryu, but Wright is conscious of, and incorporates, the concepts of yugen, sabi, and wabi (all discussed in the Afterword). Some insightfully investigate zen, paradox, and memory from the perspective of an ailing black man in France:
There is nobody
To watch the kitten playing
With the willow tip.
Wright's haiku must have also influenced another of my favorite poets, Etheridge Knight, to write haiku, and are a valuable part of the history of English-language haiku. Two final points about the book. First, race is rarely directly addressed in Haiku, but when it is I believe Wright was trying to address the universality of race, that black or white we're all really the same. If so, this was a major statement by this author (dissertation subject waiting). Second, the line "how lonely it is" repeats in various haiku, and lines mentioning loneliness reoccur. In one sense a good haiku should evoke the feeling of loneliness, without resorting to the word. But Wright, knowing this, did not feel constrained from using it, which I believe shows how powerful, overwhelming, that feeling was for him, in the last 18 months of his life. These poems must have served as a kind of therapy for a sick man, a vehicle for his memories, and a way to keep creating as he was dying, something he could do even when bed-ridden. If you love haiku, you will find something to love in Richard Wright's Haiku. [4.5 Stars]
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