Haiku Guy

Over February break we had to read Haiku Guy (cover on the right), a telling of the life of on of the famous haiku master, Issa's student "Buck-Teeth." I really enjoyed this book, the writing was a mixture of quietly yet powerfully descriptive and bluntly humorous, and this, I think, helped me most of all enjoy the story. Haiku Guy is set it Old Japan and New Orleans, giving the book a nice kind of juxtaposition, much like a haiku. David Lanoue tells us a story that he insists is being sent to him by a Buddha from the beyond and is full of colorful characters, most of whom we know only by their bamboo brush names, Buck-Teeth, Cup-of-Tea (Issa himself), Mido, Shiro, and Kuro are only some. We also meet people from the present, people in David’s writing group who give him advice on the book, and sometimes even enter its pages. This book is what you could call an instruction manual from the art of writing haiku, using the stories of Buck-teeth and his colorful friends as lessons, and then giving anecdotes from the authors own life to enforce the point he sis trying to make. I don't usually read instruction manuals on rainy Saturdays, but this one is really a great example of a rule breaker, because you would never know was it really is. The morals or the stories are so nicely wrapped up in elegant words and profound thoughts that you would never know you are learning the language of poetry. I would suggest this book to anybody, it has a bit of everything, its great for those rainy days you know your in the mood for something, but you don't really know what. Who knows you might become the next Cup of Tea with a little help from the master himself.