She Was Just Seventeen by Billy Collins

Billy Collins has just published a little "chapbook" of haiku with the witty Beatles-do-haiku title of She Was Just Seventeen.

Collins, former United States Poet Laureate, has been a longtime haiku writer and promoter. The book was edited by Lee Gurga, editor of Modern Haiku Press, who published it.

I have heard him say that he likes the "little box" that the haiku form puts you into because it gives some direction.

Look/listen to his poem "Japan" (text & audio of Billy reading it) where he talks about how one haiku can weigh on the mind.

At readings, he sometimes points out that we pass the 17-syllable structure in other places, such as in Mother Hubbard, the opening lines of The Beatles' "Let It Be", and this example of two college students he overheard talking:

When he found out he
was like oh my god and I
was like oh my god

I'm also a practitioner of the haiku form, and I enjoy the little box a lot more than some of the bigger poetic boxes. Still, I know that haiku gets pretty shabby treatment in the U.S.

I really enjoy Collins' poetry, and I know printing isn't cheap, but doesn't $20 for a 36-page book seem a bit much?

We'll see. It'll probably be the "best-selling haiku book of 2006" - which may not be a tough race most years.

Here are two from the collection-

Mid-winter evening,
alone at a sushi bar—
just me and this eel.


Awake in the dark—
so that is how rain sounds
on a magnolia.

Billy Collins will be reading at Seton Hall University (South Orange, NJ) on November 8, 2006.