Susan Antolin - Three Questions

Susan Antolin co-edits Mariposa, the membership journal of the Haiku Poets of Northern California, edited the newsletter for HPNC for the past couple of years, and will be taking on the job of newsletter editor for the Haiku Society of America in 2010. Her first individual collection of haiku and tanka, Artichoke Season, was published in July 2009 and can be purchased by contacting her at susantolin@gmail.com. She also has a web site where she posts haibun and other haiku-related musings on a weekly basis at www.artichokeseason.wordpress.com

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1) Why do you write haiku?

The former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, wrote, “The poem is the device through which the ordinary world is seen in a new way—engaging, compelling, even beautiful.” He was referring to free verse poetry, but his words are just as applicable to haiku. When I first began reading haiku and tanka while living in Japan twenty years ago, the thing that got me hooked was the very ordinariness of the subject matter. That a few simple lines about the everyday stuff of life could stop the world for a moment was amazing—and still is.

2) What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I also write tanka, haibun and have co-written a few rengay. I read, but do not write, longer poems and am a huge fan of Billy Collins.

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



the tablecloth
shaken over the lawn
starry night

Artichoke Season (Spare Poems Press, 2009)




and so I agree
not to die before she does—
the sound of crickets

San Francisco International Contest for Haiku 2008 (second place)
Artichoke Season (Spare Poems Press, 2009)




Independence Day
I struggle to free myself
from a wet swimsuit

Brady Senryu Contest 2005 (third place)
Frogpond, Volume XXIX, Number 1, Winter 2006
Artichoke Season (Spare Poems Press, 2009)

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