JW Hackett was a Zen Lion. His Haiku, of course, are renowned around the globe. In Japan, Haiku’s birth place, he is known as Mr. Haiku. This web site is a collection of his literary works, including all his Haiku as well as many consummately written essays and Western forms of nature poetry, and if you’re listening, some fierce cultural commentary. Ultimately however, James Hackett, with the support of his beloved wife Pat, committed his life to the practice of present awareness and to Haiku as Zen Art, an expression of the poet’s interpenetration with The Eternal Now.

Jim Hackett was my deep friend and my mad spiritual mentor. He taught me za zen, and then said, “Be warned, Zen is a disease of the mind !” He lived as a crazy wisdom monk, an iconoclastic recluse, though he enjoyed entertaining friends in their garden over green tea or a beer. He and Pat loved to cook and share meals. Jim was a man for all senses, reveled in living intensely and loved dogs and cats, Jazz and Bach, and Rumi and Thoreau. He was a truly free spirit, who once put an ax to my throat as a gesture of fierce love. To Jim, it all came down to living simply and immersion in the suchness of presence found in the silence of solitude in nature.

– Christopher Thorsen – JWH Literary Executor

Interpenetration with the the ever unfolding present is fully reflected in Jim’s initial essay, That Art Thou, which makes the case for Haiku as a Zen Art and reveals the depth of Jim’s spiritual path with implications for our own. Here we also get insight into Jim’s spiritual lineage from RH Blyth back through the Chan Classics, all the way back through the Buddha and Lao Tsu to the Upanishads and beyond.

All Jim’s extraordinary poetry follows in this section. Along with the treasure trove of his Haiku, his love of nature is at the core of all his consummate spiritual, lyric and nature poems as well. As for his cultural views, have a look at The Eagle’s Cry or Oblivion or Survival. Below you will also find a link for purchasing your own copies of Jim’s books.

This third section contains Jim’s masterful guidance on how to write ‘That Art Thou’ Haiku, in which he wisely draws the critical distinction between The Haiku Moment, deep presence in nature, and The Haiku Poem, the written expression of that experience.

This section includes JWH Biography, correspondence with RH Blyth, Pictures of Blyth's Home, the community of friends and That Way of Life Testimony.

The majority of Jim’s papers including his collected letters from Blyth are archived at The Haiku Foundation, with a few others at Boston University.

As Jim’s Literary Executor I am available to release his works for further publication on request. You may contact me at ct@QuantumEdge.org.

The Wild Beyond Echoing: James Hackett's Haiku Way by Paul Russell Miller
Grandad Publishing, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-9995931-4-8
146 pages
21 x 14.8 cms
Paperback
£10-00 (or equivalent currency) plus postage

To purchase a copy of this first book-length study of James's haiku, click HERE