In 2019, I began writing haiku and senryu (which have the same form as haiku but are more about human nature than Mother Nature). After decades of writing, editing, and teaching the personal essay, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn, in my own creative work, to moments as opposed to narrative.
Contemporary haiku don't tend to adhere to the 5-7-5 syllable structure that most of us were taught. (The prevailing guideline is simply 17 syllables or fewer.) More important is a one-line "fragment" followed by a two-line "phrase," or vice versa, to capture the essence of a moment, typically unadorned by literary enhancements such as metaphor, personification, or alliteration. It's in the juxtaposition of these images that the poem occurs.
sunday night train stowing the weekend in the overhead
Frogpond The Journal of the Haiku Society of America Vol. 43:2, Spring/Summer 2020
quarantine stories the last time they hugged
Presence "Britain's leading independent haiku journal" Issue 66, March 2020
eve of new year’s eve the drip of rain
Masters of Japanese Prints: Haiku A project of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery (England) and Call of the Page My haiku inspired by Hiroshige’s “Sparrows and Camellia in Snow”
winter sparrows how unremarkable the snow-laden bloom
Failed Haiku A Journal of English Senryu Issue 51, March 2020
marathon run the lives we’ve lived since we were friends * my mother’s name inside the mug tea with milk
Poetry Pea Podcast Series 3, Episode 2, “Animals” January 2020 two a.m. the dog wakes to pee but first eats the snow
Presence "Britain's leading independent haiku journal" Issue 65, November 2019
office happy hour sidewalk tables lifted by the breeze
Poetry Pea Podcast Series 2, Episode 20, "Spirits" October 2019 remembrance book write a message then turn the page
* cemetery walk their location the only thing I forget
Frogpond The Journal of the Haiku Society of America Volume 42:3, Fall 2019
deleting e-mails we’re all on this earth till we’re not
Failed Haiku A Journal of English Senryu Issue 45, September 2019
double take on an august night forearm tattoo
* in the pool splitting the lane with my mother’s memory