Adelaide B. Shaw - Three Questions

Adelaide B. Shaw is our Haiku - Three Questions guest this week. Adelaide's debut collection of haiku entitled An Unknown Road is available for purchase online at Modern English Tanka Press, www.Lulu.com/modernenglishtanka, and from major booksellers.

While preparing this week's post, I was surprised and pleased to Google a preview of An Unknown Road at http://www.lulu.com/content/2574223. The cover is very appealing; the haiku within the preview are evocative and of the highest quality. This book of poems comes highly recommended to me by several readers of this blog. I will definitely add this book to my collection.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

Haiku provide me with an outlet for preserving small, pleasurable moments. It’s a way to express an instant awareness of an image, a sound, a fleeting experience of the senses. I was drawn to haiku because, with its brevity, it is the ideal poetic form to convey these brief moments. In rereading haiku written months before or even years before, I find that they bring back memories which otherwise would probably have been forgotten.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I also write tanka and haibun. On occasion I have collaborated with others to write renku and rengay.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credit).

I have chosen three haiku that bring back memories in a way that a prose narrative describing the incident would not provide. They revive the instant shock of an earthquake, the sadness I felt seeing my father asleep in our backyard, and the strangeness of our first Christmas living in rural Switzerland far away from Los Angeles.


the pre-dawn quake
jolts us out of bed
to view the sunrise

Haiku Highlights, vol.8, No.3, 1971



wind-tossed leaves–
the withered old man
asleep on a bench

Mayfly, #36, winter 2003



Christmas far from home–
the odor of hay and manure
from an open barn

The Heron’s Nest, Vol. VII, No. 1, March 2005
Editors’ Choice

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Next week, Michael Dylan Welch responds to Haiku - Three Questions.

HNA 2009: Call for Proposals

This just in from Dave Russo:

Please spread the word that the organizers for Haiku North America 2009 are ready to accept proposals for presentations and workshops. See the HNA 2009 section of our Website for details:

http://www.haikunorthamerica.com/hna_2009.html

There is also a detailed post on the North Carolina Haiku Society Blog:

http://nc-haiku.blogspot.com/2008/06/haiku-north-america-2009-call-for.html

Workshop and Reading July 19

Time: Saturday, July 19, 2008 2:00 p.m.
Location: Regulator Bookshop
Title of Event: Haiku Festival

To complement the Japanese Festival at ADF, North Carolina poet Richard Krawiec will present a free workshop for all ages, "How to Write Haiku." This is appropriate for poets, teachers, and children. After the workshop, participants, and haiku poets from NC, will read their poems. This will be followed at 3 p.m. by a song performance by the a cappella group Fleur de Lisa, who have recorded a CD of original music, Songs From the Willow, based on haiku by NC writers. Fleur de Lisa will be singing songs from this collection, as well as other original work. To sign up for the free workshop, or if you wish to read, contact haikusongs@gmail.com

Paul MacNeil - Three Questions

Every editor that I've had the pleasure of corresponding with has helped me mature as a poet. There is no way I can ever repay you kind folks for the guidance and support that's been patiently given to me over the years (you know who you are). I think nurturing is the word that best describes the relationship I've had with overseers of anthologies, journals, and magazines. You all have my sincerest thanks.

Paul MacNeil was the first editor to take me under his wing (or, brawny arm). He was patient with this fledgling, offering an encouraging word when declining less than adequate poems...tutoring, and nudging me in the right direction when I had the makings of a decent haiku.

Paul shares his response to Haiku – Three Questions with us this week.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

In my 40’s, I bought a spy novel, a thick paperback for “summer” reading. It was set in both New York City and “exotic” Japan. Embedded in it were several haiku, identified as such. They appealed to me and made me pause and read each again. I started a long course of study about “haiku.” Quite soon, I started writing. In a few years I had one hundred typed out (remember typewriters?). Prowling a bookstore I found Bill’s "Handbook of Haiku" (William J. Higginson). I later bought "The Essential Haiku" ed. by Hass. Still a student, I now realize a few of the things that attracted me were the simplicity of nature described, and the conciseness of the language used in these little poems. I try to capture, so to share, the little “truths” of what I experience -- in places I love.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I grew up a child of a minister so the poetry of the Bible and my father’s voice were early in my ear. I have read or seen most plays of Shakespeare, master to us all in the English language. Beyond that, I never had an affinity for traditional Western poetry and did not write any. I am so glad that haiku do not rhyme, employ “poetic” words or contractions so as to make a meter, and are not full of pregnant simile and clever metaphor.

In addition to haiku, I am involved with renku and write a few haibun and tanka. Several of my haiku have been published as haiga to visual art by others.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

I’m not your first responder, Curtis, to be unsure about choosing three favorites. These are such subjective and momentary choices. The 3rd one is Yu Chang’s favorite and one of mine.

Thank you for asking me to participate.

- Paul MacNeil


***


water lilies
the stiff stance
of a bull


Acorn

***


Monticello
a boy catching leaves
in a tricorn hat


Shinzounokodou
[Heartbeats]

***


paddle at rest
beads of water slide
from the loon’s bill


Modern Haiku

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Next week, Adelaide B. Shaw.

Penny Harter - Three Questions

Award winning author and poet, Penny Harter, stops by Blogging Along Tobacco Road this week with her response to Haiku - Three Questions.

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Hi Curtis,

Bill reminds me that I've been meaning to answer your three questions. My answer to your first question is excerpted from my essay in The Unswept Path: Contemporary American Haiku (edited by John Brandi and Dennis Maloney, © 2005).

1. Why do you write haiku?

Writing haiku opens my mind, my senses, and my spirit. It helps me get in touch with what is most important—paying attention to what I’ve called, “that click in the gut,” or ‘leap of the spirit.” When asked to define poetry, I have always said that writing a poem is, first and foremost, an act of seeing, followed by connecting. Writing haiku helps me to feel relationship between myself and other, so that, in a way, I become other. . . . Both my haiku and longer poems result from a sudden awareness of connection between a perception and the feelings that arise from it, or from my sensing a unique relationship between and among aspects of the object or experience perceived, remembered, or created.

For me, each haiku I write is like breathing out, giving back to the earth recognition, affirmation, and gratitude. I am reminded of how seldom we really notice what is going on around us, and how important the most ordinary things can be. Writing haiku is one way of translating the Earth--honoring what the mountain, the dragonfly, the neighbor, and even the dirt under our feet mean to our existence. Whether we know it or not, we are one with them. The writing and sharing of haiku can bring us together as we celebrate our connections with the larger world that we share, while at the same time affirming the particular times and places of our lives and our human responses to them.

2. What other poetic genres do you enjoy? (Agreeing with Charles Trumbull, I changed "forms" to "genres" in your question.)

I like to read all kinds of poetry, from William Carlos Williams' epic, Paterson, and the work of numerous contemporary American poets, to poetry in translation from many cultures. I appreciate haibun and tanka, and have written both. Most often, I read and write longer poems--what to call them? Organic verse? Free verse? Lyric poetry? All these names have been assigned to "regular" poems as opposed to haiku and other genres of Japanese origin. And recently I've written a few sonnets. Those who may be interested in my published collections of longer poems can visit my web site through Bill's and my mutual portal at http://www.2hweb.net, where a number of my published books have their own pages, with sample poems. And my now out-of-print book of haiku for children, Shadow Play is also featured there, with examples of both the illustrations and haiku. (I invite readers to visit the publisher's page for my new book The Night Marsh at http://www.wordtechweb.com/harter.html.)

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

This is a hard one. I don't rate poems like that. That said, I do very much like the following three, the first two of which appeared in The Unswept Path (mentioned above); "evening rain" also appeared in The Heron's Nest; "fog shrouded" is previously unpublished.


evening rain
I braid my hair
into the dark


closed bedroom door —
her shadow darkens
the crack of light


fog shrouded
this morning's robin sings
inside me

Thanks for what you're doing here.

Penny

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Next week, Paul MacNeil.

Naia - Three Questions

Naia's Poetry & Art Gallery is a wonderful looking web site loaded with great poetry. One feature that I especially enjoy is listening to her recite her poems. This very talented lady stops by Blogging Along Tobacco Road and shares her response to Haiku - Three Questions.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

For me writing haiku is an organic expression of all the little ways of being that too often pass our notice. When I began writing haiku I also began perceiving the world differently, more intuitively within each moment.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I enjoy well-crafted, insightful poems no matter the form. I love writing in a variety of forms other than haiku, especially tanka, cinquain, haibun, and a favorite of mine - haiga, with my watercolor or photographic images. And I am drawn to the free flow of formless words that by their very placement with others create a magical journey one is at odds to define but is compelled to feel.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

Selecting a "top three" is not something I'm able to do. I can tell you what I tend to gravitate toward, but then that usually changes with what I'm writing in the moment. However, the following three seem to have a resonance that, to me, lingers over time and space. I hope you enjoy them.

songbird . . .
   even the crow in the next tree
       listens

BASHO Festival Anthology, 2001 (Japan)


footsteps in new snow . . .
    the weight of them
        all day long

Hermitage, 2006


scented breeze . . .
    the whir of a hummingbird
        somewhere

Modern Haiku Vol XXXIII Nr 2 (Summer 2002)

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Next week, Penny Harter shares her response to Haiku - Three Questions.

Werner Reichhold - Three Questions

Werner Reichhold, an artist of many talents, shares his response to Haiku - Three Questions with us this week.

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Dear Curtis,

Thank you so much for inviting me to answer some questions about writing haiku, and for the work to install the questions and answers on your web site.

1. Why do you write haiku?

As an installation artist for the last sixty years, I received the gift of being introduced to Japanese genres in the early 1970s when I met my wife Jane. While I was used to combining all sorts of materials into a concept to fit the demands of a given space in the location of a city, in a gallery or in a museum, I realized that I could open myself up to that thought-transference idea into literature.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

In contradiction to most other writers who concentrated for a long time on writing mostly single haiku, I myself just switched from my 3-dimensional goals I realized working in the visual arts right into poetry. On a path along concepts that include always several different genres, I offered the advantages building bigger poetical structures by combining the powers of 5, 3, 2 and 1-liners, symbiotic poetry, ghazal, and free verse plus picture into a new form I called multi-genre poetry.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

owl-eyed oak in a mouth-round hole the moon

light circling on a face

   the dreamer at home

bare foot

sleeping under a tree

                bare roots

(from Tidalwave, AHA Books, 1989)


Examples of those attempts have been published under Ahapoetry.com, section AHA-Books, in the magazines Mirrors and Lynx, in books and magazines abroad, and now on my web site: wernerreichhold.com, the page offering 2 separate books: one written in English with an introduction by Jeffrey Woodward, the other one written in German.

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Next week, Naia.

Haiku Page Issue 1.1

Here's a message from JQ Zheng about a new haiku publication:

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Dear Poets,

Haiku Page has a new e-mail address: haikupage@yahoo.com

Please send your submissions to this new e-mail address or by snail mail to:

The Editor, Haiku Page

14000 Highway 82 W., #5032

Itta Bena, MS 38941-1400

We intend to publish each issue in PDF format. Poets who want to receive a hard copy please send an SASE. We are not ready for subscriptions (rate will be decided later), but willing to send a hard copy to anyone who will mail us an SASE.

The submission deadline for Issue 1.2 is September 30, 2008. Please send no less than 5 or no more than 10 of your unpublished haiku/senryu.

Thank you for reading Haiku Page.

JQ Zheng

Baseball Haiku reading at the Chautauqua Institution

Cor van den Heuvel (co-editor), Alan Pizzarelli, and Ed Markowski will be reading from Baseball Haiku at the prestigious Chautauqua Institution on June 26 at 3:30 p.m.

This is another of those events (like Roberta Beary's book, The Unworn Necklace, being recognized by Ron Silliman) that brings haiku to the world at large.

If you are free, please drop in and support our fellow poets.

Best of luck to the three of you. Break a leg or hit a homer!

Here's a clip from NPR of Cor discussing Baseball Haiku.

And here's an article from the Washington Post about Baseball Haiku.

Jane Reichhold - Three Questions

Jane Reichhold, editor and publisher of the excellent linking journal Lynx, is our Haiku - Three Questions guest this week. Jane is also an artist, author, poet (of many forms), and publisher of numerous books.

To learn more about this remarkable lady, visit Aha Poetry.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

Because they appear on my inner horizon and out of gratitude for the gift of insight or understanding, I write the poem down. I feel a certain obligation to take care of the haiku given to me by recording them, sharing them with others, and publishing them. I feel that in order to be given haiku I need to hold my inner antenna up in a very precise way. By being open and accepting of all I experience, by being attentive to the moment in which I find myself, and by being grateful for, not only the haiku, but for every thing and every one who touches my life, I believe even more, and perhaps even better, haiku will be given to me. I often put myself into places or situations where this inner attitude is easiest to maintain, as when visiting new and interesting places or viewing the full moon set or watching the several hours it takes for an iris to open.


2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I have written and enjoyed about every poetry form that is known, but I return most often to writing haiku and with the deepest pleasure.


3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

Now the questions get really hard! Which gift is the best when the Giver is the greatest? The one most often published, after appearing in A Dictionary of Haiku, 1992, and The San Francisco Haiku Anthology: 1992 and The Haiku Anthology, 1999 by Cor van den Heuvel is:

coming home
flower
by flower


or

waiting for guests
a corner of the rug
keeps turning up


or, from A Dictionary of Haiku, 1992, and The San Francisco Haiku Anthology, 1992:


river fog
untying the boat
from a long pier


All the rest are available in the online version of A Dictionary of Haiku.

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Next week, Werner Reichhold visits Blogging Along Tobacco Road.

Kirsty Karkow - Three Questions

Kirsty Karkow has two best-selling books in print: water poems: haiku,tanka and sijo and also shorelines: haiku, haibun and tanka. Both are published by Black Cat Press. Her haiku have won the Mainichi and the R.H Blyth Award and have placed in other contests. She is the past VP of the Tanka Society of America and past tanka editor for Simply Haiku.

She lives with her husband in a Danish cottage on the midcoast of Maine USA.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

Thank you for being interested.

This short, seemingly simple poem satisfies an innate need-- the attempt to capture a special moment in the world around me; an event that seems to have more meaning when written down and then shared. During a dry period, even though my surroundings are usually watery, there is a deep sense of loss. For me, the writing of haiku adds to a practice of momentary awareness. Each poem doesn't have to be a winner (and few are ) but the occasional gift arrives which adds to the delight.

I knew nothing of haiku, when, in 2000, a sudden obsession with the this little poem overtook me. It has been a amazing and wonderful trip aboard this haiku train. A trip made additionally valuable by the haiku poets that I have met, and grown to respect, via the Internet. All have been very generous with their time, knowledge and experience. . . and still are. I like to think I'm able to extend this favor to others from time to time.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I read all kinds of classic poetry as a youngster, a habit that slipped as life got more complex. It was not until the turn of the last century that interest was re-kindled, mostly with Asian poetry. Haiku, tanka and sijo. Also the ecstatic Sufi poets. Sadly, a lot of contemporary free verse doesn't seem to resonate though I love reading what to me are the more straight-forward works of Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Stanley Kunitz, Czeslaw Milosz et al.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written what do you consider to be your top three? ( Please provide original publication credits)

I have a terrible time judging my own haiku and couldn't begin to choose. However, there have been many kind letters that have referred to favorites and three of these are shared here.

honeymoon
we wade into the current
of a great river

--The Heron's Nest May 2002
-- water poems: haiku, tanka and sijo Kirsty Karkow Black Cat Press 2005


gnarled oak
my path to the hills
starts in mist

--Modern Haiku 33:2
--A New Resonance 3 edited by Jim Kacian and Dee Everts Red Moon Press


wrist deep
in aromatic loam
new potatoes

--Modern Haiku 36.1
--Haiku Society of America Anthology 2007
--shorelines: haiku, haibun and tanka Kirsty Karkow Black Cat Press 2007


Thank you for the opportunity to gather my thoughts for your interesting column.

Kirsty

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Next week, Jane Reichhold.

Paul David Mena - Three Questions

Paul David Mena is very active in the haiku community. Paul is the webmaster of The Heron's Nest and a member of the Metro West Renku Association. He maintains and writes poetry at his free verse web site and blog and his haiku web site and blog. Paul and his wife, Mary Melodee Mena, frequently collaborate and together have produced a number of striking haiga.

Paul shares his response to Haiku - Three Questions with us this week.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

I actually wrote an article for GotPoetry.com called "Why do I haiku?" In it I say "The concise nature of haiku, which should never be longer than the length of a breath, constrains the writer to get to the point." I've been pressed for time for as long as I can remember; haiku enables me to paint a complete picture on the tiniest canvas, with no waste and no mess.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I still write what I jokingly call "grown-up poetry", but I have a tendency to lose patience with myself. Unless I am working with a very strong image or experience I often lose focus and meander to an unexpected destination. I wrote the chapbook "trainsongs" when I first began commuting in Boston, and I'm still happy with much of the longer poetry I wrote during that period.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

These three haiku were published in "Brussels Sprout" in the early to mid-90's:

three jazz pianists
improvising
for ghosts

staring
at a blank sheet of paper —
a night without words

military jet
carves a white scar
in the sky

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Next week, Kirsty Karkow.

Peggy Lyles - Three Questions

During the warm months, I enjoy sitting in an old rocking chair on my front porch with a magazine or book of poetry. One book that has made several trips with me to my reading spot is a wonderful collection of haiku entitled To Hear the Rain: Selected Haiku of Peggy Lyles.

Peggy Willis Lyles, haiku poet, Magnapoet, and co-editor of The Heron's Nest responds to Haiku - Three Questions.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

Vince Tripi asked me that question many years ago, and after considerable thought I answered, "To participate." That may be as close as I can come to the nearly impossible answer. I could add, "Because I want to and need to." Writing haiku is a way of partaking and sharing, of contributing to and becoming one with humanity, the earth, the universe. Searching, being, expressing, and discovering merge in this life-enriching habit that sharpens observation, intuition, and experience.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

A great many! I came to haiku from a love of British and American poetry, studied in some depth, and world poetry sampled in translation. Although haiku has become my "specialty," I continue to read and enjoy a broad variety of classic and contemporary poems.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

I hope the best ones are still ahead of me. I know that other people remember and value these:


summer stillness
the play of light and shadow
on the wind chimes


first published in Modern Haiku XI, 1980

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shimmering pines
a taste of the mountain
from your cupped hands


first published in Mayfly
#31, 2001


----

and


in spite of everything forsythia


first published in The Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar 2008

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Next week, Paul David Mena.

Jeffrey Woodward - Three Questions

Haibun Today editor, Jeffrey Woodward, drops by Tobacco Road this week to share his response to Haiku - Three Questions.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

I suffer from graphomania and am advised that there is no cure. Which is also why I write the haibun wherein many of my haiku are housed.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

All other poetic forms, verse or prose. I find, in every instance, that my pleasure in reading is increased by perceptible form and meaning. I try to practice moderation but am powerless before this vice.

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


only after my shadow
into the deep summer
of a grove's recess

Nisqually Delta Review, May 2007


for the marionette
deprived of its falsetto,
a dream of dancing

Lynx, June 2007


single-mindedly
rubbing a whetstone away —
cicadas at dusk

Contemporary Haibun Online, September 2007

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Next week, Peggy Willis Lyles.

Roberta Beary's The Unworn Necklace honored by Poetry Society of America

Haiku blogs are ablaze today with news of our very own Roberta Beary's book entitled The Unworn Necklace being a finalist (one of two) for the William Carlos Williams Award given by the Poetry Society of America. You may recall that Roberta was our featured Haiku - Three Questions poet on March 9, 2008.

Dave Russo of the North Carolina Haiku Society has a detailed blog post here, as does Bill Higginson on his Wordfield's Haikai Pub, and David Giacalone on his f/k/a blog.

Congratulations, Roberta! What a tremendous victory for you and haiku!

Kudos also to John Barlow, Editor of Snapshot Press, for publishing this spectacular book of poems. The haiku community eagerly awaits your next publication.

Tom Clausen - Three Questions

Tom Clausen lives in Ithaca, NY with his wife, Berta Gutierrez, and their son, Casey and daughter, Emma, in the same house Tom grew up in. Tom works in a library at Cornell University where he used to post haiku in an elevator for patrons. This has evolved to become a link at the Mann Library home page featuring a daily haiku. He became enchanted with haiku and other short poetic forms in the late 1980s after reading an article about Ruth Yarrow, a fellow Ithacan at the time.

Tom has five chapbook collections of haiku and tanka: Autumn Wind in the Cracks, Unraked Leaves, Standing Here, (self published) A Work of Love (Tiny Poems Press) and Homework (Snapshot Press, UK).

Tom is also a member of the Upstate Dim Sum Route 9 Haiku Group.

Tom shares his answers to Haiku - Three Questions with us this week.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

I enjoy the challenge of trying to write something meaningful to myself and others in as few words possible. The human world is so bent on excess in terms of materials and expression and haiku has a refreshing antidote quality for all that is over the top too much! From reading haiku that have moved me and given me pause and solace I have fallen in love with the hope that serendipity might deliver me a few moments here and there that I can channel into something worthy to share. I like the brevity and always now concision of haiku. It is especially gratifying that haiku express appreciation for the qualities in our world that often are taken for granted or are so subtle that they often get missed. Just like my comments here may be overly wordy I love haiku for the simple reason that there must be discipline and avoidance of being overly wordy!

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I very much enjoy senryu, tanka, haibun and most any forms of poetry. I tend to be partial to free forms and anything that speaks to the universal in the utterly personal. When I read a poem that awakens in me an inner sense of truth or awareness or awakens me to something special I feel fortunate and renewed in my interest and gratitude for poetry.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

Not sure I have a top three but for the sake of this question and being what I am most often not: decisive! I'll pick three. . .

sidewalk sale —

wind twists a lifetime

guarantee tag

- Woodnotes

in the dark —

through the window light

my wife and child

- Modern Haiku

on the way home

more geese
on the way home. . .

- Frogpond

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How would you respond to the questions that Tom answered? Think it over; if you would like to participate in Haiku - Three Questions, send your answers to me and I'll post them in the coming weeks.

Next week, Jeffrey Woodward.

Ellen Compton - Three Questions

Ellen Compton is a freelance writer with a background in painting and theatre arts. She lives and works in Washington, DC, and is often drawn to the shores of nearby Chesapeake Bay.

Ellen shares her response to Haiku - Three Questions with us this week.

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Hello Curtis:

1. Why do you write haiku?

Just some of the reasons I write haiku:

The study of haiku sharpens my awareness. In writing haiku I can touch what my memory holds and my senses and imagination perceive. Small is beautiful--one red maple leaf, or a couple of pebbles, a good haiku. And haiku is a pure poetry. Writing it teaches me more about poetry than I could ever learn in the classroom.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

Other poetic forms?

Well, I love and write tanka and have been experimenting with the possibilities of haibun. Rengay are always fun, and especially so when the poets are meeting in person. In the past I have written poems in other genre, and occasionally do so now. I read, learn from and greatly enjoy the work of non-haiku poets--Mary Oliver, Emily Dickinson, Hopkins, Blake, Billy Collins, Pablo Neruda, Ted Kooser, to name only a few of the many. And I somehow consider Thoreau among the poets.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)

My top three? I'm probably not the best judge, but here are some I wouldn't mind being remembered for:


kaleidoscope
The little sound of a star
shattering

"kaleidoscope" first appeared in Modern Haiku,23:1, winter-spring 1992. Later Cor ven del Heuvel included it in the 1999 edition of The Haiku Anthology (New York: W. W. Norton).

motor stilled . . .
                   the headland echoes
            the loon

"motor stilled . . ." first appeared in South by Southeast, 5:1, 1998, and was selected for Snow on the Water, Red Moon Anthology 1998 (Red Moon Press, 1999).

sifting pebbles
my fingers pause to read
the broken one

"sifting pebbles" received Honorable Mention in the San Francisco International Competition, Haiku Poets of Northern California, and was published in Woodnotes, No. 27, Winter 1995.

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If you're enjoying this weekly feature, please consider sending your response to the questions that Ellen answered.

Next week, Tom Clausen.

Route 9 Haiku Group reading

Perhaps one thing I enjoy more than reading haiku by other poets is listening to poets read their poems. I've discovered that listening to other poets can be inspiring, putting me in the mood or frame of mind to write my own poems.

The Route 9 Haiku Group (Hilary Tann, John Stevenson, Tom Clausen, and Yu Chang) conducted a reading at Cornell University's Mann Library on March 23, 2006.

Folks, this is one of those jewels on the Internet that you enjoy sharing with your friends. The links below will allow you to hear these wonderful poets read their poems.

Enjoy!

MP3 Format:
http://podcasts.mannlib.cornell.edu/audio/BookTalk-03-23-2006.mp3

MP4 Format:
http://podcasts.mannlib.cornell.edu/video/BookTalk-03-23-2006.mp4