Quietude: Haiku and Other Stretches of the Imagination

Having been introduced to haiku as a spiritual practice by a Trappist Monk, the author learned to experience life in intimate moments of observation, thought, and reflection. These often Zen moments present a vantage point from which to navigate life at one's own pace and according to one's own priorities. Haiku, beyond being another form of poetry, can become a way of life. "Silence is spoken here." Those words are found on small desk plates scattered throughout the refectory at the Abbey of Gethsemani, where Kenny Faught's haiku journey begins. From a place of deep and sacred silence, Kenny's haikus come forth. Good haikus look easy. But the "good"-ness of them only comes with time and prayerful attention and quiet seeing. From the real place of the Abbey, Kenny Faught takes us on a pilgrimage to even more reality - dogs, cornbread, family, leaves, and the seen and unseen worlds of Spirit. And the final blessing of this book is that Kenny invites the reader to take up the task of attending and seeing and putting words down, given the time it takes to find them." -The Rt. Reverend Brian Lee Cole, Bishop of The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee"Kenny Faught sees life in haiku. Like a sculptor-scholar tooling a block, he introduces the form with an introduction and two appendices. Then, it is a memoir in haiku, other poems, and photographs, a humble paean to what the poet has loved: home, sycamores, God, monasticism, other poets, the woods, Zen. Life itself. He'll have you seeing your own life in moments of three lines, counting syllables." -Jon M. Sweeney, author of My Life in Seventeen Books (Monkfish) and Thomas Merton (St. Martin's)"Brief moments are here caught in vivid words - brief three liners, which make the world seem larger." -Brother Paul Quenon, Abbey of Gethsemani, author of Where Time Its Silence Keeps and co-author of The Art of PausingDr. Kenny Faught is a retired pastor, college professor, and counselor. A graduate of Cumberland College (B.A. in Religion/Philosophy) and The New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (Masters and Doctorate), he has also done post-doctoral studies at Duke Divinity School. He enjoys reading, preaching, sauntering in the woods, and playing classical guitar. He and his wife, Chrissy, are members of The Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan in Knoxville, Tennessee. Read more