Haiku in English is the most accessible, democratic, and intimate of poetic forms. Accessible because on first impression, one “gets it.” Democratic because anyone and everyone can write haiku. After all, how difficult can 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables be? Intimate because…well here one encounters the difficulty with haiku. Fine haiku always hides a mystery and only the very adept writer of haiku can implant intimations of this mystery in and among the words. There are rules and codes and traditions and myths, but true haiku is ever escaping these confines. And here we encounter Susan Scott’s Haiku Joy: Poems, Prayers, Photographs. Susan has been writing long enough and well enough and now free enough to be host to the true spirit of haiku, the spirit that yearns to express itself in metaphor, in simile, even allegory, with the symbolism always evoking the depth of nature to excite a resonance in the human heart. At a time when nature has been abandoned, degraded, and depreciated, there can be nothing more important than singing out a call to nature, to give voice to the impressions of nature, for the purpose of reanimating the presence of nature in the human soul. Poetry can do that. Haiku can do that. Susan Scott’s Haiku Joy can do that. Long ago, a dream told me that “a poem wants a poem.” Susan’s book will stimulate you to write haiku as a response to her haiku, to her prayers, and to her photographs. Enjoy!

—Russell Arthur Lockhart

Author of Words as Eggs and Psyche Speaks

Available at Amazon: https://cutt.ly/FhSAIuC