I've been glancing through Richard Wright's Haiku lately. It was recommended to me a year ago in a writing class and I've just never gotten around to actually looking at it. Even now I feel like I don't have the mental energy to really appreciate poetry. My job isn't the least bit difficult but I find it draining despite--or perhaps because of--that fact. It's also pretty much destroyed my work ethic.

Anyway, though, his haiku is really lovely. Also, actual haiku. I've read a lot of 3-line poems that are referred to as haiku by their writers when, in fact, they conform to neither the form or the subject matter. I'm not particularly a purist, but if it doesn't follow one or the other shouldn't it just be considered a 3-line poem? So I like that his are real haikus. And the shortness of the form makes it something I can handle right now. Even beyond the mere fact of its shortness I feel like there's something tremendously appealing about three line poems in general and haiku in particular.

Here are a couple of Wright's:

178
.......From an icy quay:
When her ship heaves into sight,
.......The sea disappears.

676
.......After a meeting
Held in the corner garden,
.......The leaves scattered.