Though the translations could’ve been better, I was quite impressed by the variety of poets represented. There were a few names I’d never heard of before, and Chiyo-ni’s work appeared several times.

It’s not the best/most informative collection of haiku I’ve come across, but the fact that it goes so much further than the usual collection of the Masters and their pupils makes this a fascinating read.

That line (from page 44) still makes me giggle! I loved this book! At points, it’s laugh-out-loud funny, while other phrases of mistranslation make no sense whatsoever (and that’s why they’re so great). It’s just as fun to watch someone else read this book! The faces my friends made while trying to make sense of it all were priceless!

I read this in the hall between classes, and it took me less than a week to finish. It was worth it, though! Quick doses of hilarity – after a really depressing week, this is just what I needed.

I had a book of cookie recipes like this from Martha Stewart once, but the recipes were devilishly difficult to pull off and the end result was generally nothing to write home about. So, when I got this for Christmas, I was skeptical.

Oh, how wrong I was!

I haven’t found a bad recipe yet! The most useful thing was on page 81, though – a recipe for flourless peanut butter cookies. Just substitute soy butter for the peanut butter, and you’ve got a tasty, wheat & peanut free treat – a must in this house!

If you think too much about it, this tastes a bit like room-temperature refried beans. However, it makes a nice substitute for the peanut butter in peanut butter cookies (use a coarse sugar though, or the texture will be a bit off) and it goes well on whole grain breads in small amounts.

Though I’ve found other substitutes that are more to my liking, this is the only one I’ve found that’s safe for the whole family to eat. If anyone develops a soy allergy though, I don’t know what I’ll do.

I hate fruit-flavored teas, and I avoid them at all costs. Apparently, no one told my stepmother this, and I wound up with Pomegranate Red in my Christmas stocking. I was not amused, but I accepted it and put it in the tea cupboard, where it sat until last Tuesday.

I have the psych class of doom this semester, and I have to take some food with to tide me over until I get home (ridiculously late) and have dinner. This, of course, means I’ve been going through the tea like crazy, and after running out of interesting loose-leaf varieties (time to go to the store again) and alternating between white & jasmine tea for a time, I finally looked to the back of the cupboard for something new.

Moroccan Pomegranate Red. Why not?

When I opened my little bottle of tea during break, I expected the worst – the smell made it clear I was drinking one of those dreaded fruity teas. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

Though the odor is strongly pomegranate, the taste is more tea than anything else – you can still detect the fruit, but it’s not as overbearing as the smell would suggest. However, I would still avoid adding too much sweetener to this tea, as it stands very well on its own – a teaspoon of sugar worked just fine for me. Perhaps I’ll be more willing to give similar teas a chance from now on.

This is an interesting little anthology with a decent variety of haiku. There is a brief section in the beginning that gives some background information on the masters, but it lacks information on the other, minor poets who appear in the “seasonal interlude”. I found this to be mildly annoying, but nowhere near as grievous as the poor choice of text color vs. background on some of the pages.

That said, the translations themselves are excellent, and the photographs are well-chosen and simply amazing. The interlude was quite interesting, as well – I’d never heard of some of the poets who appeared there, and I’m hoping to find the time (and books) to explore their work further. Overall – a good read, especially for someone just starting to look into haiku!

I got so wrapped up in other things that it took me nearly a year to finish reading this! It was worth it, though. It’s full of interesting facts about little-known people in history. I absolutely loved the bit on Emperor Norton! It’s inspired me to do more research and be much more interested in historical details in general. I highly recommend this book!

I found this on a crowded shelf at the Salvation Army store one day last semester. I was bored out of my mind, frustrated with a college that couldn’t even answer a question about haiku – and there it was! The last fifth of the book fell off as I pulled it from the shelf, and the “you break it, you bought it” attitude was just the excuse I needed to justify spending a dime.

This was the most amazing book ever – possibly because it came at the right time. The translations seemed odd, but this was because Henderson had some ridiculous notion that short verse should rhyme. Aside from that, this book was exactly what I needed.

Just as the cover promised, it went into detail about masters from Basho to Shiki, even making a brief mention of Chiyo along the way (I’m not sure that the author was completely unbiased with Chiyo, but then again, I have not read enough to know the details about her and her poetry.). Students of the great masters were also mentioned, and though many lacked detailed description, there were at least a few of their haiku within the pages.

There was also a handy little section in the back that explained kireji, and even though I do not speak Japanese, I found it delightfully intriguing and went back to read some of the haiku in their original Japanese (The Japanese was at the bottom of the page where the translation appeared).

For me, this was a fascinating book, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history and tradition of haiku. The translations can be a bit annoying, but it’s still well-worth the read!

I just about died laughing when I realized I had to buy this for a college course! At least my little cousins will enjoy it. I, on the other hand, will be exceedingly embarrassed when I catch myself singing this stuff around campus. :P

Well-written, wrist-slitting fun, this book is depressing beyond belief.