Sonora Spring Haiku

By Judith Lauter

Sonora Spring Haiku, by poet and neuroscientist Judith Lauter, provides a photographic and poetic account of three spring months in the lush Sonoran desert near Tucson AZ.
In a radical departure from the natural settings of most classical haiku a world of misty wetness, cranes, pagodas and perhaps a solitary, aged man these poems evoke a stony landscape of space, sun, and sharp edges. Such an extremely wide range of application for the form shows us that poetry is perhaps the most flexible of the literary arts, capable of engaging almost any experience or geography.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483676692

Judith Lauter

Judith Lauter (JudithLauter.com) was born in Austin, Texas. When she was nine, her family moved to Michigan where she later met her husband, the poet Ken Lauter, in a poetry-writing seminar at the University of Michigan taught by Donald Hall (US Poet Laureate, 2006-7). Th e couple has subsequently lived in the deserts of Arizona, the mountains of Colorado, the prairies of Missouri and Oklahoma, and now make their home in the pineywoods of Nacogdoches TX. Judith holds a BA in English literature, three master’s degrees (creative writing, library/information science, and linguistics), and a PhD in communication sciences (Washington University in St. Louis). She taught and directed human neuroscience laboratories at major universities for more than three decades, before retiring in 2012 and returning to her fi rst loves, photography and poetry. In addition to scientifi c articles, chapters, and books (including How is Your Brain Like a Zebra? Xlibris, 2008, ZebraBrain.net), she has published poems in journals, and won two Hopwood Awards for poetry (University of Michigan), an Academy of American Poets prize (University of Denver), and the Norma Lowry Memorial Prize (Washington University). Her prize-winning photography has been compared to Eliot Porter’s; reproductions (including selections from this book) are available at FineArtAmerica.com. She has published eight previous books of poetry-and-images with Xlibris, plus a book of photos and poems about Wallace Stevens with the Stephen F. Austin State University Press (see inside for titles).

Book preview

Contents

Preface

Morning

Desert Roosters

Cool Mornings on the Porch

Cactus Wren’s One-Way Conversation

Desert Voluptuary

In the Shade of a Prickly Pear

Weaving in Sonora

Midday

Outcomes

Winds Gusting to 40

Cinco de Mayo

Mesquite Growing Season

Desert Facts of Life

See Her, She’s Gone

Afternoon

Sabino Canyon Creek

Sabino Canyon Cardinal

Geology Vista, Santa Catalina Mountains

In the Chiricahua Mountains

Evening

Glory Light

World Turned Away Now

Why the Desert Night Seems So Familiar

Epilogue

Visions: Driving up Kitt Peak

Notes

to Ken

who has shared a love for the Sonoran desert with me

for more than four decades, not only during the few years

when we were there

but also the many others when