Friday, 26 June 2020

One Hundred Great Books in Haiku...

One Hundred Great Books in Haiku: Popular Penguins
One Hundred Great Books in Haiku (2005) - David Bader


*SOME EXCERPTS*

Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust
Tea-soaked madeleine -
a childhood recalled. I had
brownies like that once

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Single white lass seeks
landed gent for marriage, whist.
No parsons, thank you

The Histories - Herodotus
Go tell the Spartans -
the Persian hordes are fierce and
wear funny slippers

Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
Thus I was first great,
then small, and much vexed to learn
that size does matter

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Wild. Strange. A bit damp.
Heathcliff waits for Cathy's ghost.
Women. Always late.

The Call of the Wild - Jack London
Alaskan tundra -
a dog finds his inner wolf.
White snows turn yellow.

Middlemarch - George Eliot
Stifling social roles,
small-town gossip - beware the
eyes of Middlemarch


*MY THOUGHTS*

yesterday's landscapes
jostle for identity
in our tomorrows

medieval worlds
a cathedral symbolised
frail hope and despair

Hardy's countryside
where youthful innocence
damned experience

Shakespeare understood
that tomorrow is a dream
grounded in today

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