Lucas Stensland - Three Questions

Lucas Stensland is the co-author of my favorite thing (2011), a collection of poetry from bottle rockets press. His poems have appeared in publications such as Frogpond, The Heron’s Nest, Mainichi Daily News, Mayfly, Modern Haiku, Presence Haiku Journal, Ribbons, Shot Glass Journal and Simply Haiku. He currently lives in Minneapolis with his cat, Townes Van Zandt.

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1) Why do you write haiku?

How and why I came to write haiku is one of my strangest memories. It happened a few years ago when I was staying at a tiny cottage inn in wintry rural Slovakia while on a poorly planned ski trip that I went on by myself. I was ungodly bored. Every evening I found myself staring into space or rereading my travel guide.

One night the elderly woman who cooked our meals came to me and handed me the only book they had in English. It was Higginson's The Haiku Handbook, an old and ragged copy missing its front and back covers. Stranger yet, some equally bored child had once used it as a coloring book. The entire thing. For two solid nights I poured over this eye-opening and popping volume and decided that haiku would be a permanent part of my life. Haiku color my relationship with the world, and my haiku act as snapshots of me stumbling through it.

2) What other poetic forms do you enjoy? 

I also enjoy tanka, haibun, tanka prose and other short poems. Senryu is probably what I write most often. I'm a big fan of the writings of Collin Barber, Christina Nguyen, Aubrie Cox, Liam Wilkinson, Melissa Spurr and Melissa Allen, as they write beautiful works without pretension.  

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

strip club parking lot
puddles not reflecting
the true me

(bottle rockets)



one night stand
two
too many

(Frogpond)



a bartender
I don't recognize
knows my drink

(Prune Juice)

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If you've been enjoying this series and have not contributed, please consider sharing your response - whether it be for haiku or tanka - to the three little questions that Lucas answered. You must be a published poet to participate.