Cat Haiku - Hardcover

Coates, Deborah

3.58

192 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446677507 ISBN 13: 9780446677509

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2001

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This humorous collection of 150 haikus captures the psyche of cats, and distills the essence of kitty behavior in the five-seven-five scheme of classic Japanese poetry. The poems are accompanied by line drawings.

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About the Author:

DEBORAH COATES: I am a native Southern Californian who was born the same year that construction began on Disneyland. I don't know what the cosmic import of this is, exactly, but it's sort of interesting, don't you think? (Of course, I don't get out much.) Anyway, I come from a long line of readers, and one of my earliest memories is of sitting in my tree house, reading a Little Golden Book about colors. This may explain my early — and still continuing — fascination with bright colors, which I guess definitely explains my fondness for Hawaiian shirts (a fondness that is not shared by anyone I know, unfortunately. Do they know something I don't?). Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. Anyway, aside from the books, I grew up with a wide variety of animals — cats, dogs, horses, ducks, the occasional lizard, and once a whole bucket of crayfish that we caught in the creek and which our cats subsequently stole and ate — and began making up stories about all of them at an early age (except for the crayfish — crustaceans are kinda hard to get to know). I also grew up doing lots of artsy-craftsy things, which unfortunately included accidentally dying the bathtub purple when I was a teenager (hey, gimme a break, it was the '60's era of hippies and tie-dye, okay?). Shortly after this I went on my first trip abroad, (much to my parents' relief, I suspect, and to the dismay of the plumber, who probably thought he'd get to fix whatever it was I was going to ruin next). Anyway, that initial taste of travel went right to my head and I became a travel junkie, an occupation that I enthusiastically furthered by first doing a stint in the Peace Corps and then serving in the diplomatic corps for a while. These experiences became the springboard for a career in public service, which is how I earn my daily bread (and the cats' kibble, even though I know they'd probably rather have a burger or something). Working in the public sector is more interesting than people think it is — no, really — and I've been lucky enough to have a variety of different jobs over the years, all of which have been (and still are) hard to explain to my mother. However, it does make it easy to fill out the "Occupation" line on forms; I just write down "bureaucrat" and nobody ever questions it. At least, so far they haven't. When I'm not working, traveling, writing, or looking for Hawaiian shirts, I spend my free time observing the, uh, "idiosyncratic" (to put it politely) behavior of my two cats, Pinch and Pippin, whose antics inspired Cat Haiku — and who will probably pen a book of "People Haiku" someday out of sheer revenge. And when I'm not spying on (I mean, observing) the cats, I read. My childhood favorites include Blue Willow by Doris Gates, Margery Sharp's Miss Bianca books, Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Babar books by De Brunhoff, plus anything by Beverly Cleary or Dr. Seuss. These nestle comfortably along side my "grownup" books, which include Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis (I always wanted to be Auntie Mame, or at least live like her); Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott; Paul Gallico's Thomasina, (which probably helped inspire me to write Cat Haiku); the James Herriott books; mysteries by Agatha Christie, Elizabeth Peters and Ellis Peters (there's nothing like a nice cozy murder to help clear one's mind); Sue Townsend's hilarious Adrian Mole books (I'm big on hilarity, ditto laughter in general); and anything by Mary Laswell, P.G. Wodehouse, or Pearl Buck. Also, like everyone else, I am a huge fan of both Harry Potter and Bridget Jones. Anyway, I also like to cruise my favorite web sites now and then; these include adventurewomen.com (whose trips I take every time I can scrape together enough money and vacation time), ebay (good for Hawaiian shirts and other neat stuff), and alibris (excellent for used and out-of-print books).

From Publishers Weekly:

Domestic cats and kittens have always composed verse, but much of their work has yet to be translated from the original feline and Meow. Humorist Deborah Coates has come to the rescue with 150 Cat Haiku, accompanied with cute faux-Japanese line drawings: "Surprise! I can jump/ Through the newspaper while you/ Are still reading it!"

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