the poetry of being:
an analytical review of
  a tree frog's eyes: haiku   

The book’s essays reveal the poet’s life as a wandering minister, naturalist, sojourner, and contemplative observer. They also articulate the philosophical and aesthetic principles that shape his haiku. This interplay between exposition and expression is one of the book’s most distinctive literary contributions. 

The Foreword is not just a perfunctory introduction, it is a declaration of what Navarro calls “poetic being”. Navarro writes: 

“Haiku… encapsulates and conveys awareness, feeling, compassion, silence, temporality, awe… revealing a startling sense of wonder, mystery, or insight into the ordinary.” 

This articulation of haiku as a vessel for “wonder” and “suchness” (tathata) becomes the interpretive lens through which the reader encounters the poems. The Foreword teaches about haiku without being preachy. It is an unusually rich, small monograph on haiku aesthetics, and it elevates the book from a simple collection to a hybrid work of poetry and instruction. Navarro explains the mechanics and philosophy of haiku with clarity and warmth, making the book accessible to newcomers while still offering substance to seasoned poets.

One of the book’s most striking strengths is its deep grounding in classical haiku aesthetics. The Foreword situates Navarro’s haiku within a lineage stretching from ancient Chinese poets like Sensai and Hõ Un to the Japanese masters Bashō, Buson, Issa, and Shiki. This historical grounding gives the collection a sense of continuity and purpose. The haiku are not isolated creative acts, they are contributions to a centuries-long conversation about perception, nature, and being.

The Foreword also outlines the classical Japanese aesthetic principles of kire, kigo, ma, zoka, tathata, and toriawase and explains how they function in haiku. Navarro’s explanations are unusually clear and accessible, making the book valuable not only for readers but for students of haiku craft. These principles are not merely name‑checked in the Foreword, they are lived out in the poems themselves. This gives the collection a sense of continuity with tradition rather than mere imitation of it.

The book avoids the trap of becoming a historical reenactment of Japanese haiku, rather, Navarro’s haiku are unmistakably rooted in American landscapes and contemporary sensibilities. The result is a fusion that feels both respectful and fresh—like a tea ceremony held on a front porch in the Midwest. The classical scaffolding is there, but the lived experience is modern, local, and personal.

In academic terms, the Foreword functions as a framework for the poems that follow. In practical terms, the book is an engaging and enjoyable read. Navarro is informative without being pedantic, a balance not all poets achieve when discussing their craft.

The collection’s stylistic depth and diversity without losing coherence is another of its merits. Navarro moves fluidly among traditional 5‑7‑5 English‑language haiku, modern short‑form haiku, gendai (contemporary) haiku, semantic disjunctions, and occasional senryu. This range demonstrates not only technical versatility but also an understanding of haiku as a living, evolving form.

The poems never feel like exercises, rather explorations. Despite the variety, the collection maintains a coherent voice—quietly observant, spiritually attuned, and grounded in the natural world.

The book’s nature essays “The Four Seasons of My Times” and “Sojourner in the Earth” are not digressions; they are the experiential substrate from which the haiku arise. Navarro’s vivid recollections of walking through Midwestern blizzards, camping in Michigan woods and heartland forests, living high up in the Colorado Rockies, and exploring the Sonoran Desert explain the sensory precision and ecological intimacy of the poems.

For example, when he writes 

“Trees, woods, paths hold and have always held a special fascination for me… I considered the trees I got to know around our property to be my friends”

the reader suddenly understands why the haiku in the section “Trees Woods Paths” feel so lived-in, so relational, rather than observed from a distance.

These essays also reveal Navarro’s spiritual and philosophical evolution, his early encounter with Zen poetry, his later Christian ministry, and his lifelong commitment to simplicity and presence. This fusion of Zen attentiveness and Christian contemplative sensibility gives the haiku a unique tonal signature: reverent but not pious, grounded but not doctrinaire.

His background as a minister, philosopher, and “wandering poet” subtly permeates the work and gives us a poetic vision shaped by a life of attunement and deep participation. The poems are not religious but carry a contemplative quality, a sense that each moment is both ordinary and sacred. This is not the heavy-handed spirituality of didactic verse; it is the spirituality of noticing, of pausing, of being present.

The book participates in the broader cultural movement toward mindfulness and contemplative practice graciously, not with slogans or self-help rhetoric. The haiku themselves do the work.

With the Foreword and nature essays as substrate, the haiku read not as isolated moments but as crystallizations of a worldview. The poems enact the principles the essays describe.

1. Zoka (the creative force of nature)

In the seasonal haiku section:

bright white sun
icy fields steam away…
earth’s facial

Nature is not static scenery but an active, transforming presence.

2. Ma (the unsaid space)

Many haiku hinge on silence, absence, or implied action:

silence
each step crunching
frozen snow

The essays prepare the reader to appreciate this silence not as emptiness but as participatory space.

3. Tathata (suchness)

Navarro’s haiku often present things exactly as they are—unembellished, unforced:

a rock among rocks
reposed in the riverbed
my hair flows

The emphasis on “things as they are” makes this simplicity feel intentional and profound.

4. Toriawase (juxtaposition)

The poems frequently pair images in ways that reveal deeper relationships:

placid lake
a kingfisher dives
into the moon

The discussion of juxtaposition helps the reader see how these pairings connect the particular to the universal.

The thematic essays in the sections “Mindlessness” and “Be Here Now” extend the book’s philosophical arc into contemporary life. Navarro critiques the compulsive distraction of modern technology:

“Don’t be a slave to its constant random interruption of naturally unfolding life.”

These essays are not anti-technology, they are pro-presence. They echo the haiku’s insistence on attention, embodiment, and immediacy.

The haiku and senryu in these sections become miniature case studies in mindfulness and mindlessness. They show how easily the human mind drifts away from the present moment, and how poetry can call it back.

Navarro’s line art illustrations in the book function as visual counterparts to the haiku, operating with the same aesthetic principles he articulates in the Foreword: simplicity, suchness, spaciousness, and dynamism. They are not decorative, they are part of the book’s contemplative architecture and they mirror the haiku’s brevity. Just as a haiku uses a handful of words to evoke a world, the drawings use a handful of strokes to evoke a scene, gesture, or mood. This parallel creates a subtle continuity between the visual and verbal elements of the book.

The reader is primed to appreciate the poems’ restraint because the illustrations have already modeled it. They embody the Zen qualities of suchness and the meaningful space around things discussed in the Foreword. A single curved line may suggest a mountain ridge; a few strokes may imply a frog, a branch, or a ripple. The empty space around the lines becomes part of the image, just as the unsaid becomes part of a haiku.

Placed throughout the book, the line art acts like breathing spaces. They slow the reader down, encourage a pause, and create a contemplative rhythm that mirrors the pacing of traditional haiku reading. In this way, the art becomes a structural device. It shapes the reader’s experience of time. This is not illustration in the Western sense; it is ink meditation.

The simplicity of the illustrations invites the reader to slow down, notice details, and inhabit the present moment. They are not meant to be “looked at” so much as entered. In this sense, the art functions as a mindfulness cue. It prepares the reader to receive the haiku with openness and attention.

The entire book is a unified work. Taken together, the Foreword, essays, illustrations, and haiku form a coherent philosophical project. The Foreword provides the aesthetic and historical framework. The nature essays provide experiential and participative grounding. The illustrations model Zen quality and provide meditative moments. The haiku provide the awe-inspiring distilled moments of perception. And the mindfulness essays provide the ethical and existential implications.

The result is a book that is not only a collection of poems but a lived philosophy of being that integrates nature, spirituality, history, and personal experience.

A Tree Frog’s Eyes: Haiku is ultimately a book about perception—how to see the world, how to inhabit it, and how to honor its fleeting moments. It is about seeing the extraordinariness of the ordinary hidden in plain view:

         lush carpet of moss
        on wet stones near waterfalls
        a tree frog’s eyes

The essays deepen the haiku by revealing the life, thought, and spiritual practice behind them. They also invite the reader into a way of living that is attentive, grateful, and grounded.

In this sense, the book’s impact extends beyond literature. It becomes a companion for anyone seeking to reconnect with nature, with presence, and with the quiet but profound rhythms of life.

For haiku poets, the book offers both inspiration and instruction. The Foreword alone could serve as a primer in haiku aesthetics, and the poems model a range of approaches to the form. For general readers, the collection provides a quiet refuge, a series of small, luminous moments that invite reflection without demanding it. For seekers of mindful peace and harmony, the book is a gently guiding meditation.

Within the global haiku community, the book contributes to ongoing conversations about the role of classical aesthetics in modern English haiku, the boundaries of the form, and the relationship between tradition and innovation. Navarro’s work stands out as a reminder that haiku is not merely a syllabic exercise but a way of seeing, experiencing, and contemplating.

While the book is grounded in serious study and decades of practice, it never feels heavy. Navarro’s touch is gentle, his imagery clear, and his tone welcoming. A Tree Frog’s Eyes is the kind of book that can sit comfortably on a scholar’s desk, a poet’s nightstand, or a reader’s coffee table. It is, in short, a book that takes haiku seriously without taking itself too seriously—and that is part of its charm.

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