Small Town Big City: haiku & senryu

This award-winning collection was first published in 1987. The revised edition contains ten new haiku and senryu, which McLeod has selected for this current printing. In the everyday rush to get things done we often miss the poignant small things and meaningful moments that lie just beyond our everyday consciousness. Small Town/Big City is about those moments. Whether it is a prom tux flapping with excitement in a pickup window or a homeless man screaming at the mannequin they are uniquely captured by Donald McLeod’s keenly perceptive eye and his command of the American haiku form. He grew up on a small farm near the town of Manchester, in rugged northern California’s Mendocino County. He was an only child who spent most of his time playing in nature my himself. His parents didn’t own a television, so the natural world around Donald was his entertainment. Most of his adult life was spent in Los Angeles where many of his “Big City” moments were captured. But the images from his country boyhood have remained with him, and are vividly recalled in his “Small Town” section of this book. McLeod has written over 3500 haiku and senryu and has been published in countless journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe. He works full time as a movement artist and butoh dancer, and is the owner of America’s oldest Living Statue company. Many will remember Donald as the famous gorilla in the Samsonite TV commercials, or as the gorilla in Trading Places. As an actor he is best remembered for his role of Peter Pan’s Shadow in the movie Hook, and as the werewolf TC, in the classic horror film The Howling. Donald McLeod also created the cover painting.