Casting Through Life: Exploring the Wonders of Life and Fly Fishing Through Haiku
Middlesex College English Department Chair Mathew Spano discusses his third publication, a book of haiku reflecting on his various phases of life.
“It’s a journey, not through the seasons, but through my adult life,” said Middlesex College English Department Chair Mathew Spano.
Spano’s third book, Casting Through Life merges two ancient art forms: haiku and fly fishing. The book is meant to simulate a ripple in the water as well as in the reader’s mind.
“These poems range from when I was writing them in the early ’90s all the way to a couple of months ago,” Spano said. “I always wanted to put it all together and I was lucky enough to find a publisher who was interested.”
Casting Through Life, published in July, is available online at the publisher’s website as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble online stores. It checks in at 56 pages, with close to 100 haiku – two to a page – on various themes in Spano’s life.
Middlesex College plays a significant role. Among other professional developments, the College is where Spano met math professor Bob Urbanski, who taught him to fly fish.
“He had me out there every weekend, every month,” said Spano with a laugh. “We would talk about fly fishing all the time, wonder what they were biting on.”
Spano will do his first public reading from Casting Through Life on September 18, at 2 p.m. at The Terrace Restaurant on the Middlesex College Edison campus. He will also have additional readings on October 25 at 2 p.m. at South Branch Outfitters in Califon, NJ and November 15 at 11 a.m. at the Central Jersey Book Festival.
“It’s different from what I have done before, these are all haiku and they are meant to be snapshots, or spots of time when you feel connected to nature and when you feel connected to what is happening in that moment,” Spano said.
A haiku, a Japanese poem with a set number of syllables over three lines, is meant to evoke feelings in the reader, and Spano believes it resonates both in spoken and written form.
“The old analogy is that a haiku is a pebble thrown into the reader’s mind pool,” said Spano. “If someone is open to them and has some connection to them, it’ll work, but you have to be open to it too. Some people don’t like them, they think they are too brief and the reader shouldn’t work that hard. But I like the idea of making the poem along with the reader.”
Spano is finalizing his next manuscript entitled Whispers in the Gallery, a book of ekphrastic meditations using classic works of art as inspiration, which he started on during Covid.
Learn more and order Casting Through Life here:
https://kelsaybooks.com/products/casting-through-life
