Haiku

Nyhet

How the modern world came to fall in love with small poems from Japan

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

449 kr

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The story of haiku’s global journey, from Japan to every culture and languageA century and a half ago, almost no one outside of Japan had heard of the haiku. Even in Tokyo some people regarded these tiny poems with disdain. Today they are the world’s most widely known poetic form, cherished and reviled in equal measure. At their best, haiku are highly attentive to the moment and describe the world with pinpoint accuracy; at their worst, they can be trite and cloyingly cute.How did these diminutive, seventeen-syllable poems come to pervade global culture?Acclaimed poet and critic Robert Crawford charts the haiku’s journey across the world, from Japan to nineteenth-century New Jersey, London, and California—and on to twenty-first-century Senegal and Brazil. We see the early experiments by contemporaries of Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle, grapple with Ezra Pound’s modernist haiku, witness their transformation by Rabindranath Tagore and the Beat Generation, and newly appreciate the globalised, digital form we know today.In Crawford’s hands, the story of the haiku is the story of international literary exchange—and a resounding celebration of poetry and translation.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-09-22
Mått152 x 235 x 38 mm
Vikt638 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor416
FörlagYale University Press
ISBN9780300290127

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Poesi inom Skönlitteratur
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“In our mercantile world we judge things by their size: here Robert Crawford gives us an essential biography of the haiku, that tiniest and most popular of poetic forms, supporting William James' contention when offered a minuscule bust of Locke: “Anybody can have a statue; but a statuette—that indeed is immortality.’”—Alberto Manguel, author of The Library at Night “Packed with vivid stories and personalities, this is a hugely enjoyable journey through haiku’s conquest of the global poetic imagination.”—Christopher Harding, author of The Light of Asia “Haiku are like those paper flowers that expand in water: a small act of magic. Crawford's book attends to the historical moments when haiku hit the water and blossomed in Britain, America and around the world. Always intriguing, frequently illuminating, and wryly funny.”—Sara Lodge, author of The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective“Scholarly but sprightly, Robert Crawford’s global biography of haiku tells us everything we need to know about the history and development of this most delicate/resilient of poetic forms. In the process, it also gives a multitude of fresh insights into those writers who have helped to create its popularity—showing us the world by concentrating on the poetic equivalent of a grain of sand.”—Andrew Motion, poet, novelist and biographer