Mike Farley - Three Questions

Mike Farley writes from Red Lodge, Montana, where he lives with his wife Shirlee on a hay and cattle ranch. He is 68 and has six grown children and fifteen grandkids. Mike's poetry is rich with the images of the mountains, plains, weather and animals with which he is daily surrounded.

He was introduced to haiku in 2002 by fellow haijin and long-time friend Darrell Byrd, and although he has contributed his work to many online haiku lists, he has not yet been published in print.

Mike's favorite haiku poets are those who have inspired him over the years, including Naia, Cindy Tebo, Tom Clausen, George Swede, Timothy Russell, Earl Keener and Johannes Manjrekar.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

I write haiku for the sheer pleasure of it. I absolutely love reading good haiku and I've saved quite a long list of my favorites from other poets. Writing my own haiku, however, really good ones, is not easy for me. Juxtaposition and the images that can (and should) spring unspoken from between the lines is the key to the whole thing (for me anyway). It's so hard to do and so delightful when it happens.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I enjoy almost all forms of poetry, but haiku is my favorite and the only form I've seriously attempted to write myself.

3. Of the many haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three?

I've gone through the several hundred I've written over the years, and tentatively ear-marked 50 or so I was really pleased with thinking that I would then pare down that group to "my three favorites". I'm delighted and surprised to report that it was impossible to do. There are many that I found to be my favorites, but here are three that are close to my heart and which I feel "do what they're supposed to do" as haiku.



lupine
a darker blue
in the hoofprints



uprooted iris
the muddy puppy
wags its body



spring snow
the warm spot where
the dental nurse leans



And here are my three favorite senyru . . .



blues
remembering
when I used to smoke




Jack Daniels
just a splash
at the river's edge



rustling leaves
just a glimpse
of her thigh

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Peggy Heinrich will be our Haiku - Three Questions guest next week.