5 highly subjective stars because this book is for me

My interest in both haiku and Kerouac go back 10+ years to my college days. I don’t know how or why I started to write haiku, having never really studied or read it, but it became a playful way for me to pass the time when bored, a form of mindfulness when stressed or frustrated (there is something so calming about counting syllables), or a way to meditate on and savor a moment. My iphone notes are full of them over the last decade.

As for Kerouac, reading Beat literature appealed to my youthful whims and aimlessness as well as my affinity for run on sentences so much that I took an advanced course on Kerouac offered at my university. Years later in 2022, on a visit to San Fransisco, I spent an afternoon at a bar called Vesuvio where Kerouac himself frequented, geeking out over the history. Just outside of Vesuvio is a pedestrian street now called Jack Kerouac alley, and on the opposite side of the alley is City Lights bookstore, where I came across this collection, picked up Ginsberg’s Howl, and geeked out once more over my interests of Kerouac and haiku colliding.

The editor here did an excellent job of combing through sources such as letters, drafts, pocket notebooks, etc to create this collection. The intro is academic but serves to help the reader appreciate JKs role in establishing American haiku. For a generation known to throw words on paper without revision, Kerouac believed a haiku is best reworked and revised, which is actually refreshing to me as I revisit Kerouac a decade later (older, wiser, less aimless, few whims). It’s amazing how I can imagine an entire scene and feeling from only three lines. The book is organized to show how Kerouac’s work changes over the years. One of my favorite editor notes when introducing a section is “these appear to have been written from the point of view of Kerouac’s cat, while he was drunk.”

Like I said, this collection is for me. Now to actually read the Japanese haiku greats.

3.2
هایکو شاید تنها فضای شعری‌ای باشه که دوست دارم.از جک کرواک کتابی جز همین کتاب شعر،چیزی نخوندم.کتاب مقدمه‌ی نسبتا خوبی داره که مختصر راجع به کرواک و سبک هایکو نویسیش توضیحاتی داده.مترجم تمام تلاشش رو کرده که ترجمه‌ی خوبی ارائه بده اما باز هم در نهایت خوندن متن انگلیسی شعرها انتخاب بهتری برام بود.

HAHAHA KEROUAC IS SO FUNNY I THOUGHT THIS WAS GONNA BE A SERIOUS BOOK BUT NOOOOOPE. although towards the end they do get more sombre after he succumbs to alcoholism. here r some of my favorites:
some are really pretty "the top of jack / mountain - done in / by golden clouds"
and some are terribly lonely "racing westward through / the clouds in the howling/ wind, the moon"
some are weird and entertaining "the cow, taking a big / dreamy crap, turning / to look at me"
some are so sassy "train tunnel, too dark/for me to write: that/ men are ignorant"
some are endearingly quirky "i made raspberry fruit jello/ the color of rubies / in the setting sun"
some are just endearing "if i go out now, / my paws / will get wet" (which is frm the pov of his cat!)
and some are funny af "here comes / my dragon /- goodbye!"

Remember the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial where two people collide? “You got peanut butter on my chocolate!” “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!” And the rest is delicious magic? Well, that was me picking up Jack Kerouac’s Book of Haikus. I love haiku. And I love Kerouac. But I was skeptical about the combination. Fortunately, I ended up as pleasantly surprised as the clumsy snackers.

This volume includes the poems Kerouac selected for his Book of Haikus as well as poems gathered from his novels and notebooks. The poems from Book of Haikus are superior to the others, yet they make up less than half of the volume.

I have mixed feelings about the inclusion of so many poems from Kerouac’s novels and notebooks. On the one hand, I can see how they would be of interest to those studying the development of Kerouac’s art, but on the other hand, they lower the quality of the volume as a whole. Although I appreciate editor Regina Weinreich’s dedication to her project, I think she does Kerouac a disservice by padding the book with weaker poems.

That said, the poems Kerouac selected for Book of Haikus are impressive. I think Basho would be proud. Here are a few of my favorites.

“Quiet moonlit night—
Neighbor boy studying
By telescope; —‘Ooo!’ ” (16)

“In back of the supermarket
in the parking lot weeds,
Purple flowers” (18)

“Glow worm sleeping
on this flower,
Your light’s on! ” (27)

Kerouac’s three-line poems are not composed of seventeen syllables, but they are faithful to the spirit of Japanese haiku. A haiku has two elements: an observation of nature and a sudden perception. Moreover, Basho identified the aesthetic of haiku as one of Karumi, or lightness. I think Kerouac’s poems succeed in achieving both the form and the aesthetic of haiku.

Among the notebook poems, I found one that seems to be an earlier version of another one of my favorites. Here is the poem in Book of Haikus.

“Bee, why are you
staring at me?
I’m not a flower!” (15)

Here is the poem from the notebooks.

“Am I a flower
bee, that you
Stare at me?” (155)

Weinreich says that Kerouac revised his poems. This is not something that Kerouac did with his other writings. It seems likely to me that the poem from the notebook was revised into the poem included in Book of Haikus.

“Am I a flower” is moved from the first line to the third line where it becomes an exclamation instead of a question. The whole poem builds up to it. “I’m not a flower!”

The address to the bee is moved from the second line to the first line. This is simpler and more direct. In the earlier poem the address to the bee occurs in the middle of the question. This dilutes the effect of the question. The reader of the revised poem knows right from the start that the question is addressed to the bee.

Addressing the bee in the middle also makes the earlier poem a single complex sentence whereas the revised poem follows the traditional Japanese form of an observation of nature followed by a sudden perception with these two elements divided by a Kireji, or cutting word. In English, the function of the Kireji is often performed by a dash or other punctuation mark.

The first part of the revised poem ~“Bee, why are you/staring at me?” ~ is the question addressed to the bee and the second part of the poem ~ “I’m not a flower!” ~ is the sudden, surprising, and humorous reaction of the speaker.

This comparison between the notebook poem and the Book of Haikus poem is revealing. The poems from Book of Haikus ~ like the haiku of Basho ~ have the feeling of spontaneity, but they are instead carefully crafted poems. The appearance of spontaneity is evidence of the talent of the poet.

I am happy to shelve Kerouac’s Book of Haikus alongside my other volumes of haiku. Unless it better belongs with my Beat Generation books. Perhaps I should find out where the peanut butter cups are shelved in the supermarket—with the peanut butter or with the chocolate. But wherever I put Book of Haikus, it has turned out to be a serendipitous discovery for me.

**Seminal, Essential, a Must-Read!**

If you like haiku, or hate haiku, especially if you hate the word 'haikus' you should read this. If you consider yourself an American, or care to have a comprehensive understanding of our art and culture (there is some, despite what you might assume, have been led to believe, might reasonably suspect) and contributions to literature and posterity, this is one of the most significant books I can think of, blending the largest thrusts of eastern thought and philosophy with western language and pathos, in a distinctly folksy fashion that demonstrates startling parallels and compatibility. In an age of increasing global citizenship, where things blend into fascinating cultural and spiritual amalgams without borders or language barriers any longer hindering them, Jack Kerouac was a pioneer and trendsetter in countless ways, who blazed a bold and inventive path with Beat verve and audacity, anticipating and encouraging a synergy which would come to definite our world to come. Highly recommended, worth exploring thoughtfully with great appreciation!

Some exceptional, many good, some bad; most of them are interesting, at least for a moment.

If only I had used this book as research for Poems From College, Growing Up…. And President Trump.

Fun, thoughtful, trippy poems from Kerouac. I'm happy to have included his works in my haiku readings. I'll be buying a copy of this for my brother...and I might have to buy a physical copy for myself.

It's as if you are sitting with Jack, looking over his shoulder at his notebook. Cigarette wafting curls of smoke....

almost none of these are haiku but go off jack

31 favorites……….





Listen to the birds sing!
All the little birds
Will die!




Dusk—the bird
on the fence
A contemporary of mine




Beautiful young girls running
up the library steps
With shorts on




Perfect moonlit night
Marred
By family squabbles




Black bird —no!
Bluebird—pear
Branch still jumping




Woke up groaning
With a dream of a priest
Eating chicken necks




Blizzard in the suburbs
—old men driving slowly
To the store 3 blocks




For a moment
The moon
Wore goggles




The cow, taking a big
Dreamy crap, turning
To look at me




A quiet moment —
Low lamps, low logs —
Just cooking the stew




The new moon
Is the toenail
Of god




So humid you can’t
Light matches, like
Living in a tank




Time keeps running out
—sweat
On my brow, from playing




You’d be surprised
How little I knew
Even up to yesterday



Haiku, shmaiku, I can’t
Understand the intention
Of reality


Everlastingly loose
And responsive,
The cloud business



I’m so mad
I could bite
The mountaintops


What is a rainbow,
Lord? — a hoop
For the lowly



Wednesday blah
Blah blah—
My mind hurts



Reflected upsidedown
In the sunset lake, pines,
Pointing to infinity




Ah who cares?
I’ll do what I want—
Rolls another joint



Loves his own belly
The way I love my life,
The white cat




The train speeding
Thru emptiness
— I was a trainman


Autumn nite—
my mother cuts her throat





On Desolation
I was the alonest man
In the world


Trees can’t reach
For a glass
Of water


Two cars passing
On the freeway
—husband and wife



In enormous blizzard
Burying everything
My cats out mating



A current pimple
In the mind’s
Old man


Wish I were a rooster
And leave my sperm
On the sidewalk, shining!


The fly, just as
Lonesome as I am
In this empty house

Yllättävästi pidin kirjasta ja runoista, vaikken ihan kaikista pitänytkään mutta suurimmasta osasta kuitenkin ja jopa ymmärsin niitä. Yksinkertaista mutta erittäin kaunista ainakin suurimmaksi osaksi. Itse kirjailijasta oli mukava lukea enemmän ja siitä millaisessa tilanteessa tai minä vuonna haikut oli kirjoitettu. Ehkä ymmärsi niitäkin hieman paremmin kun tiesi kirjoittajan mielestä ja elämästä enemmän. Kannattaa lukea rauhassa ja ajan kanssa muutama sivu kerrallaan, että haikut jäävät mieleen. Itse luin alkuun hitaammin mutta loppua kohden tahti kiihtyi.