Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon

Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon
ISBN-10
1628723378
ISBN-13
9781628723373
Series
Haiku
Category
Poetry
Pages
205
Language
English
Published
2011-11-21
Publisher
Simon and Schuster
Author
Richard Wright

Description

Richard Wright, one of the early forceful and eloquent spokesmen for black Americans, author of the acclaimed Native Son and Black Boy, discovered the haiku in the last eighteen months of life. He attempted to capture, through his sensibility as an African-American, the elusive Zen discipline and beauty in depicting man’s relationship, not only to his fellow man as he had in the raw and forceful prose of his fiction, but to the natural world. In all, he wrote over 4,000 haiku. Here are the 817 he personally chose; Wright’s haiku, disciplined and steeped in beauty, display a universality that transcends both race and color without ever denying them. Wright wrote his haiku obsessively—in bed, in cafes, in restaurants, in both Paris and the French countryside. They offered him a new form of expression and a new vision: with the threat of death constantly before him, he found in them inspiration, beauty, and insights. Fighting illness and frequently bedridden, deeply upset by the recent loss of his mother, Ella, Wright continued, as his daughter notes in her introduction, “to spin these poems of light out of the gathering darkness.”

Other editions

Similar books

  • Penguin's Poems for Life
    By Laura Barber

    ... Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, ... A Noiseless Patient Spider A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a ...

  • Penguin's Poems by Heart
    By Laura Barber

    An anthology of some of the best English poems.

  • Scales of the Dragon
    By James Timberlake

    Combining journal entries, poetry and formal e-mails, these books celebrate the sights, sounds, flavors, (and the physical and mental strain), of crossing mountains, rolling landscapes, and unchanged rural villages, as well as vibrant ...

  • Upon This Stoney Holy Year
    By James Timberlake

    There are no Formal E-mails, no Definitions, no Autobiography or Research here. And because of all that it is not, this book completes those first two in the pilgrimage series in a gentle way.

  • Heaven Is My Real Home: Volume 1
    By Karen Freeman

    Karen Freeman! Was born August 22, 1950 in Newark New Jersey. She had a “BRIGHT” daughter named Kira. She Married Warren W. C. Freeman March 1, 1998. They were married for 13 years and 20 days. She “PASSED-ON” March 21, 2011.

  • Battle Dress: Poems
    By Karen Skolfield

    Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award "A terrific and sometimes terrifying collection—morally complex, rhythmic, tough-minded, and original." —Rosanna Warren, 2018 Barnard Women Poets Prize citation In a poetic voice at once accessible ...

  • Glossator 9: Pearl
    By Karl Steel, David Coley, Daniel Remein

    O. D. Macrae Gibson points out that the function of pyȝt as a concatenating word stresses its capacity to mean both arrayed and set.8 Gordon glosses the word as varying in sense throughout the poem between “set,” “fixed,” and “adorned” ...

  • The Truth
    By Karen Michelle Thompson

    This riveting poetry collection is a fresh and witty account of thoughts and experiences that everyday people have in their day-to-day lives.

  • Heart on Fire
    By Karen Teich Cluster

    SELL. IT. SOMEWHERE. ELSE. Well, you can take your good looks somewhere else Cuz they're not for sale 'round here... I've heard about you and the things you do And I don't need you anywhere near. Yeah, I've met your kind a time or two ...

  • Lerna, a Preclassical Site in the Argolid: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens
    By American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Jeremy B. Rutter, Elizabeth Banks

    I was indeed fortunate in being able to recruit a pair of talented , conscientious , and unfailingly cheerful draftsmen in the persons of Julie Baker and Kathi Donahue ( now Sherwood ) to collaborate with my wife , Sally , in producing ...