Hold the Darkness Close

About the Book

Hold the Darkness Close - A theopoetic haiku or senryu is a fusion of poetry and spirituality, using the traditional 5-7-5 haiku form to explore human experiences, divine insights, and the connection between the sacred and everyday life. Its simplicity distills complex emotions into brief, evocative lines that resonate deeply. While haiku traditionally focuses on nature and seasons, senryu, a related form, emphasizes human nature, humor, and irony. Both haiku and theopoetics, though distinct, share a profound ability to evoke the divine and human experience through minimal yet powerful language, embracing paradoxes of life and faith. Both forms invite the reader to see beyond the surface of words and into the deeper realities they point toward, whether through meditative reflection or humor.

About the Author

R. Gordon Zyne is a Board Certified Clinical Hospice Chaplain with a Doctor of Ministry and a Master of Divinity from Virginia Union University, and degrees in architecture and planning from Pratt Institute. He completed clinical training at Johns Hopkins Academic Medicine. He has authored three novels and several works on spirituality and poetry. He is also an educator, artist, theologian, Christian humanist, and practitioner of theopoetics