Review - The Haiku Books of Lawrence Eyre, MHS 66: Available at Amazon and Walmart.com

 Lawrence Eyre's Heartland Haiku is available at Amazon - as well as Walmart.com.

Eyre's Haiku Country is also available at Walmart.com, as well as at Amazon.com.

Lawrence inscribed this in the copy of Heartland Haiku that he sent to me for review:

"Greg: Whoda thunk Garfield kids would end up writing books after reading MAD?"

At John Deere Junior High, teachers called us The Garfield Gashouse Gang, because we clustered together and had the best time laughing and being mildly disruptive. Mr. McAlister said, "The teachers can spot the Garfielders in each class."

 

 Garfield is now a condo unit, so it really needs a touch of Photoshop nostalgia.

The author and I go back to second grade, which was 67 years ago, when Lawrence's family moved to Moline and he matriculated at Garfield Grade School. Ann Johnson-Zander also went to Garfield and the three of us graduated from Moline High in 1966. The three of us lived in the same area of Moline and attended Yale at various times. 

I joined Salem Lutheran Church, after asking Lawrence where he attended. The next Sunday I got out of the car and went to Salem instead of First Christian Church, across the street. My mother said, "Where are YOU going?" I said, "Across the street," and I never returned to First Christian. As Tolkien observed in The Hobbit, we never know where that path will take us. I went to Augustana College, where I met Christina Ellenberger, whose birthday is this week.

Lawrence won a full scholarship at Yale College and joined the famed Whiffenpoofs singing club at Yale. 

Lawrence and I went to Yale Divinity, but at different times. We have stayed in touch, in part because of MHS reunions and Facebook. I have enjoyed posting his memorabilia in Moline Memories, and his mother's birthdays. Christina and I knew her at Salem and we saw his father at the Billy Graham event in South Bend, Indiana. Lawrence's parents went to Augustana College and were both in the choir, which may explain his singing voice.

It is a small world and haikus are small poems. Epic poetry and large novels can dazzle or puzzle the mind. Poetry demands so much more per word, and the haiku exposes one's lack of poetic gifts.

Lawrence went to a high school and a college where literature was taught with a deep appreciation for the authors and their contribution to Western culture. Although he earned acclaim for coaching tennis, Lawrence's haikus have been a staple in social media.

A haiku is a Japanese stanza of 17 syllables, three lines, 5-7-5.

The first stanza in Heartland Haiku - 

If trees are giving 

Their lives for this I'd better

Say something worthwhile

and also

Find your voice they said

I'm finding mine as many

Voices go silent

Heartland Haiku is one continuous poem, a challenge most of us would not want to address. The stanzas are humorous and ironic, also touching on the pain and tumults of life and death.

Quiet heroism

Lives on wherever people

Work for daily bread

Haiku Country begins

In haiku country

Extra syllables die fast

Seventeen or bust

Later

Beatles and Beach Boys

Wrote haiku songs long before

Anyone noticed

And

No haiku today

Five seven five drives me nuts

Well maybe one more

These books are a delight. They are ideal gifts for people who would like to explore the craft and see how much can come from supposedly simple stanzas.

Lawrence and Laurie have been married 40 years.

She is also a tennis coach. Their teams have been phenomenally successful.

 My father took us to the Yale football stadium, to see them demolish Princeton's team.