Snow Moon by Steven Carter A Review by Colin Stewart Jones


‗I‘m in no way, shape, or form religious; and yet, and yet....‘ Steven Carter: from the haibun, Sa


o w Mo


wottoh Rde.ig


Steven Carter is a retired emeritus professor of English and his writings have won several awards for literature. Sn


onis his first collection of haiku and haibun and seems chiefly concerned with


the writer‘s search to gain some sort of understanding of his place in life. As literature students we are taught not to confuse the speaker of a poem with the author, while we can perhaps do this with his haiku, Carter‘s haibun style draws heavily on his own experiences and there is no separating the man from the poetry.


bathing in its own light the moon ....those who are gone


snow moon— rummaging the attic all my fathers


As the above haiku might suggest, Carter delves frequently into his family history in Snw Mo:A history which is both violent and tragic. In the haibun, Dseecnt, he tells of his paternal grandfather‘s father who killed five men in a family feud and was subsequently murdered. In, In aDy Tretning Ra


o on a h ae


in, we learn Carter witnessed his mother‘s death; a scene which Carter seems to revisit often in his dreams as we find in the haibun, Te Hue. Given the above, it is understandable that Carter is searching for some meaning to it all:


h os


taking early retirement— winter moon no longer part of something


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