Only This Step by Philip Kenney

(5 customer reviews)

$15.99

 

In these delightful poems, Philip Kenney pays homage to the great haiku masters and brings a fresh energy and perspective to the form.  Again and again, Kenney shows us that when we look closely, mindfully, at the world, we are both liberated from the constrictions of ego (“Look there– / and watch yourself / disappear!”) and treated to unexpected delights (“The splendid crow, / proud in his black satin suit– / speaks as he walks”). Only This Step invites readers onto a path of attention whose rewards are inexhaustible.

–John Brehm, author of No Day at the Beach and The Dharma of Poetry

 

The best poetry helps us get close to something fundamental, something true, something that we feel in our bones, but can’t quite formulate into words. Then you read the poem and say “Yes! That’s it. That’s how I feel!” The haiku in Phil Kenney’s Only This Step do just that. “Such a fine day/to forget about,/mortality,” he writes, and “I am trying to grasp,/to find in myself,/the patience of trees.” Written around subjects such as the solace and lessons of nature, the inner life, and the miracle of the everyday, these haiku are sometimes playful, often poignant, and always wise. “My hand is empty-/no cup, no victory,/only this step, and this one.” Ah, yes. This is a book to sit with, and to find comfort and delight.

–Lucy Adkins, author of Two-Toned Dress, co-author of Writing in Community and The Fire Inside

 

 

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Only This Step

by Philip Kenney

$15.99, paper

979-8-88838-096-3

2023

With subtlety and directness these haiku illuminate again and again the astonishing realities of the world and consciousness itself. Whether in the yearning of a windchime, or the hunger to realize the patience of a tree readers of Only This Step will find that these poems open the mind to new ways of seeing and experiencing. In an introductory essay to haiku, former United States Poet Laureate, Billy Collins wrote this about the nature of this form: “. . . flat definitions fall well short of accounting for haiku’s mysterious power to cause in the reader’s consciousness a sudden shift, literally a new way of seeing.” Philip Kenney’s haiku in Only This Step fulfill the nature of that promise.

Philip Kenney writes and practices psychotherapy in Portland, Oregon. His most recent book, The Writer’s Crucible: Meditations on Emotion, Being and Creativity, was a finalist for The Red City Review 2018 Non-Fiction Book of the Year. This work is intended to support writers with the emotional vulnerabilities they face living a creative life. In 2018, his essay, The Rebirth of Masculinity: What We Can Learn from Harvey Weinstein and Co. was published in issue #7 of The Timberline Review. He is also the author of the novel, Radiance, and a collection of poetry, Where Roses Grow. In the Spring of 2019, Mr. Kenney began writing haiku to help lubricate his mind from the stress of the Pandemic. By June he had written over a hundred and fifty and began putting together this chapbook.

 

5 reviews for Only This Step by Philip Kenney

  1. S. McHugh (verified owner) –

    These are the fine sense of haiku, read the words, stop, look up from the page and the image seeps deep inside you. Wonderful and revelatory, we remember we are in the lovely and profound world. Bravo Philip Kenney!

  2. Joseph Maita (verified owner) –

    Radiance begets/
    a writerly crucible/
    to Only This Step/

    A miraculous/
    plain simple ample gentle/
    reading of living

  3. Glenda Goodrich –

    I loved this little book of gems. These profound, yet light and sometimes surprising, poems will lift your spirits and make you delight in the written word. Reading Philip’s book made me want to give Haiku a try myself!

  4. Michael H (verified owner) –

    Simply beautiful. My first Haiku book in decades. What a sensational reminder of the pure joy I can find in poetry. I find myself taking a deep breath. Relaxing. Reading one poem at a time. Phil Kenney brings new meaning to my morning walks, Now I am constantly thinking of his words in this terrific book of Haiku. Terrific, enjoyable and memorable. Highly recommend.

  5. Marilyn Sewell (verified owner) –

    Charming and touched with profundity, these haiku often made me smile in recognition and spontaneously fill with gratitude.

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