Of Pen & Ink & Paper Scraps

The first of this new collection’s three parts ranges very widely, from poems of childhood-his own, his children’s, and his grandchild’s-to poems of keen social and political awareness, and on to pieces about his neighbors, about growing more firmly and deeply into a personal place.The collection’s second part, devoted completely to the poet’s favorite of all the great haiku poets of Japan, Issa, “Issa: A Suite of Haiku,” is made up of 72 freshly translated pieces by one of haiku’s “great four” (the others being Basho, Buson, and Shiki -- all of whom Lucien Stryk has translated).The collection’s third part begins with some poems about painting and sculpture, then begins to “travel” to Italy, England, and Sweden. This volume of poetry is yet another demonstration of what Library Journal declared upon publication of Stryk’s Collected Poems: 1953-1983: “This collection affirms Stryk as one of our best poets working in America today.”