Across the Windharp

Born in 1917 in the American heartland of Topeka, Kansas, Elizabeth Searle Lamb has become one of the major voices in the world of English language haiku. As an advocate for a strong traditional basis while remaining open to experimentation, her writing has helped define its modern development. She has won more than 150 awards in the haiku field, and her work has been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Polish, French, and Spanish, among other languages. Haiku, more than almost any other form of poetry, is associated with a spiritual insight into the world. Originally, it draws profoundly from the Buddhist world view of change as an inevitable condition, and draws much of its beauty from a sense of the ephemeral. Lamb's frame of reference also includes Christian spirituality, drawing from her ecumenical Protestant background, and personal journeys.