“A good read in inspiration and craft, from a writing teacher who knows her stuff.”

Writing Down the Bones author Goldberg offers us just a bit of haiku study along with her travelogue to Japan, a relaxing read with some fun insights, though one wonders a bit about the hybrid approach to her subject which almost works.

The opening chapter about haiku is refreshing discussion and essential insight (Please, Western world, abandon the idiotic 5-7-5 formulas!). Goldberg learns some vital ideas from no less than Allen Ginsberg (who she taught alongside for a time), but even these ideas are supplanted from her pilgrimages to the sites and pathways of Basho and Buson. For me, these discoveries and examples from haiku writers which are scattered liberally through the book, were the most enjoyable.

Goldberg tells us about her traveling companions, her relationships with them, and her various lunch talks with others, as well. As memoir/travelogue, these are reasonably interesting and told with a sure hand and fair economy; even so, I sometimes found myself wondering about one or more scenes’ inclusion. Was she writing a diary of everything that happened or a more focused “quest for meaning” story of haiku?  I couldn’t always tell.

Even so, for lovers of poetry and of haiku, this is a good read in inspiration and craft, from a writing teacher who knows her stuff.