Haiku for the Journey by Cynthia Hahn Illustrated by Monique Loubet

$21.99

The sounds and imagery of Cynthia Hahn’s Haiku for the Journey remind us, “We are all flowers. How we forget — still we bend / whenever we bloom.” The poems by Hahn and illustrations by Loubet can be consumed quickly like brightly colored candy (“plum, rubies”), but the reader needs to reread to savor subtle flavors, and to meditate on the array of natural forms presented, alongside quiet messages often missed in nature. The poems (“Ocean Time”) referencing our Pacific Coast are especially arresting and make a fitting final crescendo for this wonderful collection.

–Lois Baer Barr, author of Biopoesis, Tracks: Poems on the “L” (FLP), Lope de Vega’s Daughter and The Tailor’s Daughter.

In Cynthia Hahn’s haiku collection, we enter a world of sound—where drums thrum and long yawns fall—and a world of image—where a mad rain drowns itself and silken green pages of moss are turning. As we are invited to listen and to look, we are also invited into a world of haiku play—where rabbits are pulled from black cloud top hats, and poems bloom in the forest and follow us home. Hahn is a poet of weather and seasons, and these themes are enhanced by the colors and movements of Monique Loubet’s lush, contemplative paintings.

–Kathryn Dohrmann, author of The Pandora Memos

Once again, our friends and artists, Cynthia Hahn and Monique Loubet, impress us with the interconnections and blending of their sensitivities : Cynthia with the unusual images she draws from nature and Monique with her particular palette of colours and movement! It’s as if both had been conceived together, each one reinforcing the other and making of this artistic expression a great accomplishment.

–Évelyne Accad, author, activist and Professor Emerita in French and Comparative World Literatures, University of Illinois (UIUC)

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Haiku for the Journey

by Cynthia Hahn

Illustrated by Monique Loubet, Color

Full-length, Paper

Pre-order Price Guarantee until January 16, 2026

RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY

This title will be released on March 13, 2026

Haiku for the Journey uses traditional 5/7/5 three-line syllabic form to inspire cyclical, poetic reflection. Cynthia T. Hahn‘s poems express reverence for nature’s layering of light and dark, of trembling and stillness. The section, “Automnal Quickening,” notes inner and outer observations that pull us toward winter’s hibernation, while “Lightening Up” gathers us to celebrate spring’s renewed palette. “Threading Summer Song” encourages sensory meditation on fullness, while “Ocean Time” closes the volume with a suspension of the seasons in perpetual resonance. The strong colors that characterize the tableaux by artist Monique Loubet evoke a deep response to this poetic journey, and the poetry’s seasonal references invite additional and renewed readings of the text. #haiku#reflection#seasons#art#nature

Cynthia T. Hahn is the author of Outside-In-Side-Out (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and Coïncidence(s), bilingual self-translated, with illustrations by Monique Loubet (alfAbarre Press, Paris, 2014). Professor of French at Lake Forest College, IL, she has taught creative writing since 1990 and has published over a hundred poems in journals and anthologies.

Monique Loubet, French painter and illustrator, first studied acrylic painting at Anderson College, IN, after which she returned to France to study lithography and linocut printmaking at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. As part of the “Groupe des peintres du Marais”, her tableaux have featured in many solo and group shows, including the Salon d’automne at the Grand Palais.