First Penguin volume of best Japanese haiku vivid translations.
Adam L. Kern studied Japanese literature at Harvard University, where he earned his PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations before joining the faculty for nearly a decade. In Japan, he has been affiliated with the University of Kyoto, the University of Tokyo and the National Institute of Japanese Literature. Kern teaches Japanese literature and visual culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Adam L. Kern's authoritative new anthology challenges the myth of
haiku as a monkish meditation on the natural world ... What we get
is a cultural history of Japan up to the end of the 19th century
condensed into verse ... This feast-like anthology reminds us that
poets excelled at social media long before the "floating world" of
the internet
*The Times*
This collection will appeal to the general reader as well as the
academic. Kern's impressive research and copious annotations will
give the scholar plenty to digest, but the lay reader can equally
delight in a collection that truly revolutionizes the schoolbook
image of haiku ... With this new collection, haiku stands poised
and ready for its reintroduction to the world of literature
*Japan Times*
This is not your grandma's haiku book. It is bound to ruffle many
feathers with its insistence on distinguishing between pre-modern
haiku as a communal art of linked comic verse and the modern
invention of 'haiku' as a Zen-inspired minimalist stand-alone poem
of seventeen syllables ... After word of this book gets out, the
English-language practice and study of haiku will never be the
same
*Jay Rubin*
The Penguin Book of Haiku is an amazing collection of haiku and
senryu and related verse. This collection spans the entire range of
poetry from the bawdy to the sublime, giving this book more
diversity than any other book of haiku I have read.
*Frogpond (vol 41, issue no.3)*
An eye-opening introduction ... Adam L. Kern's translations,
commentaries and unabashed selections bring fresh insight to the
old 'game' of haiku, a collaborative poetic form distinct from the
standalone 'haiku' the world knows today ... In reasserting the
relevance of haiku in all its incarnations variously serious, crude
and comic, Kern does the haiku-loving world a great service and
gives us all a good laugh at the same time
*Japan Journal*
One of the most enjoyable reads I've had lately, and now readers
can see what haiku really was like and what it can do. Kern is a
marvellous translator ... The illustrations further add to the
enjoyment. It's a book that should be in the library of anyone who
loves Japanese literature
*Asian Review of Books*
For anyone even remotely interested in the origins of haiku and the
claims of tradition [...] this extraordinary tome is a
must-read
*Modern Haiku*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |