R. H. Blyth (1898-1964)

I first read R. H. Blyth from books borrowed from the Montebello Regional Library of the Los Angeles County Public Library System in 1961.  There is an excellent Asian-Pacific Resource Center at the Montebello Library.  I was much influenced by writers like Blyth, Suzuki, Watts, Reps, and Chinese/Japanese literature and classics I borrowed from the Montebello Library.  

I was attending Cantwell Catholic High School in Montebello from 1959-1963.  I walked and used local buses for transportation.  I lived in the Bandini barrio of East Los Angeles near the intersection of the Atlantic and Washington Boulevards.  

I later worked as a librarian, branch manager, regional and system audio-visual coordinator, and finally as the Regional Administrator of 22 libraries in the East Region, East San Gabriel Valley area.  I worked for the County Public Library from 1974-1998.  

I enjoyed Blyth's writings for their playful humor, sensitivity to nature, humanity, and insightful and quirky comparisons of literary and classical works.  

Reginald Horace Blyth (1898-1964)   
Bibliography, Biography, Links, Resources, Quotations, Comments, Influence, Zen, Haiku
Hypertext Notebook by Michael P. Garofalo

"These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage."
- Haiku, Volume One, p. 154


"The love of nature is religion, and that religion is poetry; these three things are one thing. This is the unspoken creed of haiku poets."
- History of Haiku, Vol. One, Introduction, 8.5


"The object of our lives is to look at, listen to, touch, taste things. Without them, - these sticks, stones, feathers, shells, - there is no Deity."
- R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, p. 144.


"The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink, night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom that we attend to such things ... When we are grasping the inexpressible meaning of these things, this is life, this is living. To do this twenty-four hours a day is the Way of Haiku. It is having life more abundantly."
- R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume One, p. 11

A repost from 2006.