Title: Book of Haikus
Author: Jack Kerouac
Type: Poetry
Page Count/Review Word Count: 200
Rating: 8/10
Most people only know of Jack Kerouac as the author of On the Road, but this book demonstrates that he has skills in other areas too. Kerouac’s haiku often stick to the traditional form of 5-7-5, but he does sometimes experiment too, and often with eastern forms that he discovered through his forays into Buddhism and other eastern religions.
I only have one real gripe with this book – the writing itself is pretty epic, and I really enjoy the way that Kerouac invokes nature and natural themes in to his writing, in the fine traditions of the oldest of the old haiku writers. That said, I’m pretty sure that the plural of ‘haiku’ is ‘haiku’, and so I do get kind of annoyed by that.
Overall, though, it’s a delightful little book, and one that you could fit in to your pocket fairly easily. What’s more, it’s the sort of book that you can dip in and out of, although I have to admit that I read it from cover to cover because that’s the kind of reader I am.