Haiku reviewed in Poetry Flash

The Sign for Infinity

by Andy Brumer

“…In HAIKU, a beautifully produced and historically important new book from L.A. area-based X Artists' Books, di Prima teams up with another Beat Generation legend, the assemblage/collage/found-funk art/ and also LA-based artist George Herms. Along with his friend and fellow Angelino, the artist Wallace Berman, Herms not only bolstered and complemented the Beats literary members with their visual art work and sensibility (Jay DeFeo and Bruce Conners did so as well), but along with artists such as Ed Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell, Ken Price, Robert Irwin, and others, nurtured into being L.A.'s burgeoning fine arts community and scene during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

[D]i Prima and Herms divide their book into four sections corresponding to the earth's seasons, with each part containing eight poems placed on individual pages. On each of them Herms responds to di Prima's haiku with a beautiful, colorful, compact, and lyrical woodblock print. Of course, the number 8 graphically represents a Lemniscate, a symbol of infinity and the geometric shape best corresponding to the most efficient way energy moves through the universe. It is also a fitting metaphor for this book, which progresses as if propelled by escort, shuttled with playfulness and vigor between the quotidian and spirit worlds.”

Read the full review on Poetry Flash here.