Islands of fire, islands of spice: exploring the wild places of Indonesia Book

The word "contemporary" attracted me. As much as I enjoy the works of the four pillars of haiku, I'm more of a fan of what came after the 1920's. What also caught my eye was the price! This book was listed on Amazon for over $900. I was puzzled. It would not be going too far to say I was flummoxed and gobsmacked. Some time later, I came a cross a copy for 1/50th of that price and ordered a copy.

Lucien Stryk has been involved with haiku for decades so I felt good about ordering with no preview. While I'm not disappointed, there are some micro poems in there I'm not sure qualify as haiku and many others that stretch my already liberal and forgiving tolerance of a haiku definition to the breaking point. A few were more like complete sentences broken into 3 lines. Still others had cheater titles to help them along-

Garden Gloves

on the garden gate
left here with me
the shape of her hands

-Bob Arnold

See? That could have been written so as to omit the need for a title, the "fourth line." All in all, the Acorn book was was worth $20 and has secured a place in my haiku library. Please don't buy a 900 dollar copy though. The price is hard to fathom. Perhaps its because of its rarity in the US. I think it was released for a UK audience.

There were a number of haiku I much enjoyed.


ancient headstones
names and numbers
worn to mutters

William Hart



a small jar
has bent
the goldfish

Hamish Turnbull


the sun is a beehive
rocked in the forest bear's paws
drunk. the final honeyed ray

Arseny Konetsky


in the lampshade
the soft detonation
of moths

John Capp


with their voices
cicadas create the shape
of a big tree

Tsunehiko Hoshino


A welcome read for haiku fans and those who enjoy tiny poems inspired by haiku, but its not hundreds of dollars good. Don't be a sucker.