• Home
  • About Me
  • My Essays
  • Contact
  • For What It’s Worth: Random Writing Advice
  • Haiku and Senryu
  • Home
  • About Me
  • My Essays
  • Contact
  • For What It’s Worth: Random Writing Advice
  • Haiku and Senryu
 

Haiku and Senryu

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.
Haiku Pea Podcast (first poem)
Series 5, episode 22
Poetry Pea Journal (both poems)
Forthcoming in January 2023

morning glories
down the handrail--
the night ahead
​
*
fluttering memories
the steel gray
of her french twist
Frogpond
The Journal of the Haiku Society of America
Autumn 2022

away message . . .
chasing buttercups
up the coast

Modern Haiku
53.3, Autumn 2022

before the thunder
the flash
of a lightning bug
Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2022
Reprint from Failed Haiku: A Journal of English Senryu, October 2021

counting the leaves
on every tree
mother's walk

Failed Haiku
A Journal of English Senryu
Issue 81, September 2022


dutch door
the half of me
I used to show
​
​*
rubbing lotion
into my mother’s arms
​lullaby
Presence
Issue 73, July 2022

lilies of the valley . . .
giving prayer
one more try

Presence
Issue 72, March 2022

military cemetery
rows of men
waiting for their wives
Presence
​Issue 71, November 2021

​drop of sweat
down my back
​honeysuckle night

Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 2021

Single-line senryu:
​
night before leaving the slap of solitaire
Failed Haiku
​A Journal of English Senryu
Issue 70, October 2021


shared crossword
interlocking
​coffee rings

*
​counting the leaves
on every tree
mother’s walk
Failed Haiku
A Journal of English Senryu
Issue 66, June 2021


after a fight
on a train
Rome in spring

Presence
Issue 69, March 2021

morning darkness
the screech
of the sock drawer


*
​Single-line haiku:
​

funeral suit the pins in the tailor’s mouth
Blōō Outlier Journal
Winter 2020 (inaugural issue)

guttered candle
reminding the neighbor
again of my name
Human/Kind
December 2020

condolence note
an orphan envelope’s
rippled flap

Presence
"Britain's leading independent haiku journal"
Issue 68, November 2020


zoom call with college friends
the ancient grain
of vhs
Haiku Society of America 2020 Members’ Anthology

gated garden
half of one bench
now warm
Failed Haiku
A Journal of English Senryu
Issue 56, August 2020


day off
from working from home
the animals rest

*
memorial day

the sudden buzz
of the tattoo gun
​
*
​gratitude

my parents died
too soon to die of this
Haiku Pea Podcast
Series 3, episode 14, “Voyages”
July 2020


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
Picture

​Human/Kind
Issue 2.1, March 2020

light from the street
two men shake hands
then kiss
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
Haiku 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

Haiku 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

*
hotel room
the tv as big
as a window

Haiku Pea Podcast
Series 2, Episode 14, "Trees"
​July 2019


stream crossing
grabbing the spiny tree
that won’t always be there
Anam Cara Haiku/Senryu Competition
In Honor of Poetry Day Ireland 2019

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

last orchid flower
fallen
a child’s winter jacket


*
COMMENDED:

new year's eve harbor
silence
inside the wind


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.