Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands on Guide

Rating:
Summary: good with inaccuracies
Review: Excellent overview of Haiku. What I found especially satisfying is an overview of the type of mindset one needs to assume when writing Haiku. Writing Haiku can truly be a form of meditation in itself.

Rating:
Summary: beginners - beware
Review: How did this book get published?
ISBN is not an acronym for "International System Book Number". ISBN stands for "International Standard Book Number".
The haiku in the "simile" section is a "metaphor".
The format for rengay is wrong.
And if you are a beginner, you had better like Reichhold's haiku because you won't find any other authors in the book.


Rating:
Summary: Writing and enjoying haiku
Review: Jane Reichhold's fine book, "Writing and Enjoying Haiku", should find a place in every poet's library. Besides being an excellent "How to do it" book, it serves as an excellent reference source because it contains information about every age in the historic development of haiku.
When an art form is taken from one culture to another not only are there linguistic sources of error but there are great differences in the "World View" of the parent culture and the adopting cultures. Jane Reichhold has not avoided facing up to these sources of misunderstanding.
"Writing and Enjoying Haiku" is not for the frivolous
and shallow person who looks upon haiku as an entertaining game. It is a book intended for persons who care about haiku. Robert Gibson.

Rating:
Summary: Writing and enjoying haiku
Review: Jane Reichhold's fine book, "Writing and Enjoying Haiku", should find a place in every poet's library. Besides being an excellent "How to do it" book, it serves as an excellent reference source because it contains information about every age in the historic development of haiku.
When an art form is taken from one culture to another not only are there linguistic sources of error but there are great differences in the "World View" of the parent culture and the adopting cultures. Jane Reichhold has not avoided facing up to these sources of misunderstanding.
"Writing and Enjoying Haiku" is not for the frivolous
and shallow person who looks upon haiku as an entertaining game. It is a book intended for persons who care about haiku. Robert Gibson.

Rating:
Summary: Not quite "writing" but "enjoying" perhaps
Review: Oh Lord - the inaccuracies. Was this book even proofread? There ARE some good suggestions for writing but certainly NOT haiku. If there are newbies out there, please refer to William Higginson. He will not steer you wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Hints and suggestions for haiku writers
Review: This is a book that summarizes the state of the art of haiku writing in English which is different of haiku writing in other cultures such as Japanese or French. It is a way of rooting haiku writing in present momments of psychological awareness. The consequence is a way of grasping daily life events just as they are and expressing it ineffably. This book handles a large list of rules, criteria, hints that once examined must be discarded first and reinvented afterwards through haiku writing. It includes also important details regarding how to publish and make haiku writing a useful tool in occupations word were fluency, expresiveness and precision are a requisite. Somehow haiku writing operates as a projective technique for human minds.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoy the Form, Revel in This Book......
Review: This is one of those rare books I did not want to end. I wanted to savor each word as I highlighted, wrote in and slowly weaved my way through it.

The author, Jane Reichhold, manages to write from a place of expert while staying exceptionally accessible. This book could be embraced by those new to haiku as well as those who have been exploring haiku for a lifetime.

Reichhold balances the rules with license for freedom, "sternness" with light humor and is graceful the entire way through.

What a delight. I will have to buy several copies to give to anyone remotely interested in poetry..... actually, in living a fulfilling life for that matter!

Rating:
Summary: A Book for Poets
Review: Though the title of Writing and Enjoying Haiku features the word "haiku", this book holds a lot more than simply information on how to write a haiku. Over one-third of the book also covers the subjects of tanka, renga and sijo in the same complete method haiku is explained and made to feel something one can do. And though the book is touted as a method of calming the nerves and finding sense in this world, I find its more important message is its explanation of how Oriental poetry works. Jane Reichhold makes this clear as has no other writer of an instructional book on Oriental poetry. Master poets of the last century have all studied haiku and used this information to enrich and swing their poetry away from the past to a new understanding of how words work together to make the invisible (poetry) clear to the readers' minds. So anyone interested in poetry, their own or that of others, would do well to get this book to open up the world of that comes to us from the East. Haiku can either be a simple game or it can be the very basis of tomorrow's English poetry. It is in the hands of the reader of this book.

Rating:
Summary: I Thoroughly Recommend this Book!
Review: Years ago, when I first started writing haiku I read all the how-to books that were then on the market. Thus, when I heard about Jane Reichhold's new book "Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on- Guide" I thought, there probably won't be much that I don't already know, but I bought the book anyway, just because it was written by Jane. Was I surprised! I learned so much that was new not only about haiku, but tanka and renga as well. Now, after reading the book, I feel I can look at a haiku and understand so much better why it works or doesn't, and have the vocabulary and tools to analyze and improve my own work and that of others. Only Jane Reichhold, with her extensive background in literature and journalism and her genuine passion for the Japanese forms, could have amassed and synthesized all this material and then made it so clear and accessible to anyone. Bravo! I am recommending the book to everyone I know!

Rating:
Summary: I Thoroughly Recommend this Book!
Review: Years ago, when I first started writing haiku I read all the how-to books that were then on the market. Thus, when I heard about Jane Reichhold's new book "Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on- Guide" I thought, there probably won't be much that I don't already know, but I bought the book anyway, just because it was written by Jane. Was I surprised! I learned so much that was new not only about haiku, but tanka and renga as well. Now, after reading the book, I feel I can look at a haiku and understand so much better why it works or doesn't, and have the vocabulary and tools to analyze and improve my own work and that of others. Only Jane Reichhold, with her extensive background in literature and journalism and her genuine passion for the Japanese forms, could have amassed and synthesized all this material and then made it so clear and accessible to anyone. Bravo! I am recommending the book to everyone I know!