Raking Sand

An interview with Virginia Brady Young, past president of the Haiku Society of America, by vincent tripi, on the art and craft of haiku poetry. Introduced by Ebba Story.

The rocks at Ryōanji . . .

     a bent monk

          raking sand.

Virginia Brady Young

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1993, saddle-stapled, 28 pages, 5½ x 8½ inches, ISBN 978-1-878798-07-3

• “Haiku is challenging, at least for most poets. If you disagree and think it is easy to write, perhaps you are settling too soon for too little.” —Virginia Brady Young

• “The interview contains practical discussions on writing habits, developing haiku sequences, overcoming blocks, and achieving clear definitions for haiku and senryu. Virginia and vince go on to share their deep feelings on the profound value of silence. They also acknowledge the poet’s need for companionship—to have a ‘key person’ who can be absolutely trusted to evaluate one’s writing. Virginia recounts wonderfully vivid stories. We see her as a young city bride discovering an amazing odor in her husband’s countryside. We are present at Ryōanji temple where a monk raking sand astonishingly transforms her perception. And she speaks joyfully of walking into a wild hurricane wind. In her replies, Virginia hints at an underlying and abiding trust in the universe.” —from the introduction by Ebba Story

• “As the Press Here catalog of titles grows, editor Michael Dylan Welch has chosen an exciting direction. . . . Press Here has released its second volume of interviews and discussions of craft in the haiku genre [after On My Mind, an interview with Anita Virgil]. Raking Sand, an enlightening interview with Virginia Brady Young by vincent tripi, is not only memorable for its pertinent questions and insightful answers, but should prove to be an invaluable reference tool in any poet’s library, whether a practitioner of haiku or not. . . . Raking Sand is not only a literary treasure, but exhibits the kind of pedagogy that Joseph Campbell alluded to in relating how one of the great myths might teach us how to live, or in this case, how to live and write. To sum up the words of Virginia Brady Young, only hers will do: ‘To achieve anything in creative categories, including haiku, one must have humility, persistence, objectivity, and above all, the desire and ability to read widely and deeply in the field, almost to the point of scholarship.’” —Wally Swist, from a review in Modern Haiku 25:1, Winter–Spring 1995, pages 107–108

• An excerpt from this interview, “Leaping The Chasm: An Interview with Virginia Brady Young,” first appeared in Woodnotes #17, Summer 1993, a month before the book was published.

• See also On My Mind, vincent tripi’s interview with Anita Virgil.