A Poet’s Last Words: Haikus for the Traveler

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  05.12.09 | 12:05 PM ET

Sad news from the world of poetry: University of Wyoming professor and award-winning poet Craig Arnold, who disappeared last month while traveling in Japan on an arts fellowship, is now presumed dead.  Japanese rescue teams have called off their search on the assumption that Arnold fell from a cliff on the volcano where he was last seen hiking.

I’m not a huge poetry reader and hadn’t heard of Arnold before his disappearance made the news in recent weeks, but I was charmed when I read some of his recent blog entries.  The haikus he wrote to accompany his posts—some lighthearted, others contemplative—are a nice way to chronicle the Japanese experience and now resonate as the last impressions of a traveling poet.

I particularly liked the following excerpt, which captures a moment many travelers will identify with. 

  >>At Tokyo Station, you are at last hungry enough to overcome your shyness and sit down at ramen counter. It makes it easier that noodle soup is the only thing on the menu. The only contribution asked of you is your choice of broth: soy or miso? The noodles are tasty, especially when doctored with pickled ginger, red bean paste, hot sesame oil and ground sesame seeds, and for a few minutes you are absorbed by their taste and texture, warm and full and complete. Halfway back to your hotel, though, the sadness catches up to you again, as you gradually remember how it feels to move through the world alone.

        In a tiny room
                the paper squares of window
                        blue in the twilight

Tags: Poetry, Travel Writing, Asia, Japan, Shrinking Planet

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


1 Comment for A Poet’s Last Words: Haikus for the Traveler

Tim Craig 05.12.09 | 3:28 PM ET

I bought a book in small antique shop in Oswestry 20 years ago titled ‘Haikai Haiku’ Published by The Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai Ueno Park, Tokyo 1958. It was my first real encounter, with Haiku outside the occasional one in an anthology of poetry.

it is full of the most glorious gems just one at random

On the feathers of mandarin-ducks
Settle wisps of snow
Deep stillness reigns

it was bought on an impulse and every time I take it down from the shelf it gives me pleasure

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