Friday, January 26, 2024

Poetic Musings: Empty Shelf Haiku by Kirsty Karkow

empty shelf --
dusty outlines of books
my parents read

The Heron's Nest, 3:4,  April 2001

Kirsty Karkow

Commentary: The juxtaposition of an "empty [book]shelf/L1" and "dusty outlines of books/L2" is visually evocative,  and L3, "my parents read [in long bygone years as implied from "dusty" in L2]," adds emotional weight to the haiku about [at least two] types of absence -- the absence of the speaker's parents and the absence of the books they valued most.

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