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Seeds From a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and The Spiritual Journey
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About Seeds From A Birch Tree: Writing Haiku And The
Product Description A Zen Buddhist monk explains the value of haiku, a three-line, seventeen-syllable poem, as a writing meditation and spiritual guide and provides exercises to help readers compose their own haiku. Amazon.com Review Infused with hearty Zen wisdom and proceeding at a deliberately unhurried pace, Seeds from a Birch Tree attempts to make the poetry of nature into an easily accessible refuge from the fast pace of the technological world. Clark Strand, an English teacher who has lived as a Zen Buddhist monk, has written an engaging book that weaves personal memoir with poetry instruction. The book is well written if unusual, a happily meandering series of lessons that encourage the reader to appreciate how the writing and reading of haiku can become a very practical meditative process. From Library Journal The subtle simplicity of haiku depends on the complex balance of structure, object, image, and impression. The 17-syllable poem combines two phrases, arranged in three lines; balanced by a pause that presents the picture of a seasonal object as it exists for the poet, the poem demands freshness and a total lack of pretension. To achieve such a response is an ongoing process, suggests Strand, a Zen Buddhist monk, senior editor of Tricycle, and founder of New York Haikukai. Writing haiku is a meditation for this process, a spiritual journey toward an understanding of the world and the poet's place in it. Strand maintains that progressing toward spirituality and writing haiku are interdependent and mutually beneficial. Libraries that need a basic introduction to haiku should turn to The Essential Haiku (LJ 6/1/94). Strand's slim volume focuses more on the struggle to maintain spiritual discipline.?Denise S. Sticha, Seton Hill Coll. Lib., Greensburg, Pa. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Clark Strand has taught at The New York Open Center, and The Juilliard School.
