Cloud Wisp on a Cliff Edge - by John Brandi (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A selection of haiku to celebrate the author's 82 years on planet earth, 40 of which have been devoted to the practice of haiku.

The haiku in this collection have been called Modern American Haiku. For me they remain unclassifiable jolts. Unexpected up-from-under flashes filled with innuendo, private revelry, public mockeries, uninhibited delight. Dark or luminous, they offer a quick blink, one that prickles the taste buds, gong-strikes the ear, gloams ultra-violet in the third eye. The haiku come late in life, my life at least, and they come in a time of chaos, more war, population displacement, locked borders, unlocked money faces, techno takeover, criminal autocrats.

Review Quotes

Praise for John Brandi:

"These poems shine with a Taoist sensibility and the wisdom and simplicity of self. John Brandi gives us the artist's heightened sensitivity and clarity of detail; poems of rare precision, charm and truth."--Joanne Kyger, author of About Now

"Brandi's work is all about traveling inner and outer landscapes. His poems and drawings may be thought of as notes to fellow travelers. The roots of his work may be traced to a tradition hailing back to the poet-painters of ancient China and Japan."--Soledad Santiago, The New Mexican

"Brandi writes honestly and wittily. Like another poet, Leonard Cohen, who wondered rhetorically if travel leads us to anywhere, Brandi seems to suggest that destination is not as important as the act of adventuring itself."--Preston Houser, Kyoto Journal

About the Author

John Brandi's haiku practice spans four decades, a steadfast companion to his life as a poet, visual artist, and long-standing author of books and broadsides of poetry, travel essays, and haibun. His haiga (haiku paintings) have been exhibited at the New Mexico History Museum, the Roswell Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Public Library. In 2009 he gave the keynote addresses for the Haiku North America Conference in Ottawa, Canada, followed by the Punjabi Haiku Conference in India. In 2017 he received the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for A House By Itself, translations of Masaoka Shiki's haiku. In 2024 the New Mexico Literary Arts honored Brandi with a Lifetime Achievement Award. His recent books include: The Diamond Other: Mountain Poems (Empty Bowl Press) and A Luminous Uplift: Landscape & Memory (White Pine Press).