In Ghost Woman, Crystal Simone Smith explores the long and deep connections between nature, personhood, ancestry, and trauma through haiku and haibun. Separated into five sections, the poems emphasize the way social bonds and landscapes are reflected in and through the environment. Smith brings her experiences with race, motherhood, and poetry into conversation with the five elements, Wind (fu), Earth (chi), Water (sui), Fire (ka), and Void (ku) to take readers through an introspective haiku journey, an exploration of the nature of the self as well as the nature of the broader world. Balancing shattering grief with ordinary moments of love and trauma with survival, Ghost Woman weaves a narrative verse of single motherhood, bearing witness, and carrying your history with you. The poems in Ghost Woman invite readers to be with nature and themselves more intentionally.

Crystal Simone Smith is Instructor of the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University. She is the author of Runagate: Songs of the Freedom Bound, also published by Duke University Press, and Dark Testament: Blackout Poems.

A Note About the Godai Philosophy and Contemporary English-Language Haiku  ix
Preface  xi
Wind (fu)  1
Before the Storm
Post-Surgery Strength
Highs and Lows
Black Friday
Earth (shi)
First-Ever Garden
M Club Lounge
Loose Ends
The Ways of Men
Water (sui)
Modern Paganism
Ways of Doing Things
Good Sport
What We Know of Light and Growth
Fire (ka)
Smith’s Barbershop
Shelter Aubade
When Darkness Comes
Latchkey
Void (ku)
Our First Place
Pruning Season
Afterword
Acknowledgments