HAIKU SANDS

The verses included in this publication concentrate on themes encountered in everyday life; simple experiences that can be evoked by just a few verbal hints.  Ranging in subject from the most elegant to the most seemingly trivial, they capture the essence of what the author describes as “Suggestive Brevity” by sketching virtual word pictures.

The Scenes and Sentiments [SANDS] that led to the creation of each of these works are included to illustrate the process leading to such verbal framing.  It should, however, be noted that most were written in and about Japan as seen through “blue eyes” so that they may vary significantly from a similar view as seen through Japanese eyes.

Readers with artistic or illustrative skill and a “suggestive technique” are encouraged to try their hand at creating a haiga [Haiku-esque Artwork] in the open space on each page.  Simple, yet providing a deeper sense of place and feeling, a haiga, with its informal and modest brush or pen work, possesses a “Suggestive Brevity” that can infuse the appropriate haiku with a previously unknown effect.

One’s life is liable to undergo drastic change depending on the direction followed at each fork in the road along the way.  Born in Evanston, Illinois, as were his four sisters, Paul Holman Faust later moved with his family to Kentucky, where he graduated from high school and attended university.

Enlisting in the U. S. Marine Corps, his duty stations included bases on both the east and west coasts before being posted to Japan with stints in Okinawa and Thailand.  All that he saw and experienced in the Far East then tempted him to seek his future in Japan where he is currently a professor at a Japanese University in Nara.