Sundays with Jenny, a collection of haiku and photographs by Jenny Bienemann, invites readers into a quiet, contemplative day filtered through the tender, unhurried gaze of a Sunday. The book unfolds in six thematic sections: Rejoyce, Rise, Renew, Reflect, Restore, and Rejuvenate. Each part marks a distinct time of day, tracing a gentle arc from dawn’s hush to the stillness of midnight. Along the way, it highlights the small, familiar rhythms of daily life.

The haiku, in true minimalist form, are concise yet resonant. Each one distills presence, healing, and wonder into just a few lines. There’s an emotional clarity in Bienemann’s verse, personal yet uncannily universal. Her images are spare but precise, offering a world that feels both intimate and expansive.

Reading Sundays with Jenny is like pausing at the top of a hill, letting out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Bienemann captures the ephemeral, the half-thoughts and half-feelings we often brush aside, and honors them. Some haiku wrap around you like warmth on a cold morning. Others, such as “doubt magnifies faith, / asking the kinds of questions / only faith answers,” halt you mid-thought and hold you in silence.

One of the book’s quiet triumphs is its structure. The emotional progression echoes a soul’s gentle unfolding. With each chapter, readers drift from light and hope into self-reflection and eventual calm. The transitions are subtle but powerful, forming a seamless narrative of emotion rather than action.

Perhaps the most arresting quality is the immediacy it brings. These haiku do not merely observe, they awaken. Bienemann has a rare ability to locate grace in the unnoticed and pour reverence into the mundane. This book could be read in a single sitting, yet its resonance lingers. It’s especially evocative in autumn, when trees shed both leaves and memory, but its comfort endures in any season.

For those in search of stillness, or simply a companion for the quieter corners of life, Sundays with Jenny offers both presence and poetry in equal measure.

Pages: 212 | ISBN 978-0-1234-6578-8