Juanita Casey
Burning leaves…
the face once again
feels summer
The pickers
have left one plum...
Hey, wind
On the South wall
hangs a pear –
on the North wall
hangs a year
Under the bridge,
the stream –
the leaf and I,
travellers
Haiku from Horse by the River and other poems, publ. by Dolmen Press, 1968
Four crows on four posts
across a field of mustard –
a chord for summoning foxes
Why rage if the roof
has holes?
Heaven is roof enough
Both haiku from Eternity Smith and other poems, publ. by Dolmen Press, 1985.
© Juanita Casey, 1968, 1985
The legendary Juanita Casey, a travelling woman and a powerful poet, was probably the first in Ireland to write haiku as we know them. She started composing them in the 1960s, and a few of them appeared in her 1968 collection. She kept writing them for quite a number of years. Rumour has it that she has written more than appeared in her collections.
Patrick Kavanagh
Corn-crake
a cry in the wilderness
of meadow
(First published: The Lace Curtain No 4, 1971)
© Patrick Kavanagh, 1971
Patrick Kavanagh, one of the most powerful Irish poets, probably didn't know that he wrote a haiku, and an excellent one! We found it in an old Irish magazine.
Michael Hartnett
In a green spring field
a brown pony stands asleep
shod with daffodils
Sanctifying grace:
a seagull and a jackdaw.
They kiss in the sky
Somewhere in the house
a tap gushes out water –
sounds of someone else
Publication of these haiku from the Inchicore Haiku sequence on our website is our tribute to Michael Hartnett, the wonderful poet who was one of the first in Ireland to pay attention to this genre. "Inchicore Haiku" was published in book-form in 1985, so Hartnett was the first Irish poet to publish a collection of his haiku/senryu.
© Michael Hartnett, Gallery Press, 2001
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