In preparation for my special project in February (see Big Announcement Teaser from last week), I made some long overdue updates to my haikuandy.com web site.
The two most significant additions were photo galleries for some cool haiku related events I participated in, namely…
SF Photobooth: 2014 Haiku Postcard Exhibit
In March of 2014, SF Photobooth in San Francisco’s Mission District hosted an exhibit of my haiku photographs. A lot of people showed up on opening night, including many who had received postcards from. Some of them I’d never met in person. It was a great night! The exhibit stayed up in the gallery for a couple of months.
Check it out here.
HAIGAGRAPH: A Haiku Art Collaboration
This was a lot of fun. Amos White invited me to do a visual project of some sort with my haiku for a jazz and poetry celebration in April 2017 at Oakland’s Bellevue Club.
For the visual aspect, I enlisted Missoula artist extraordinaire Linds Sanders to collaborate on thirty haiku-inspired paintings. I provided the haiku, she did the paintings. She really knocked it out of the park. In addition to the thirty paintings (5x8), she created a series of ceramic pieces as well.
See the results here.
The works were shown in Missoula before making the trip to the Bay Area for the main event, which featured readings by myself, ruth weiss, Clive Matson, and Amos White. It was a rare honor to meet and read with ruth, one of the original Beat poets and the first to put haiku and jazz together.
Anyway
Here are last week’s seven haiku and where they went…
haiku 20240108 » Sleepy Hollow, NY USA
I toss a few coins
to divine the future
san francisco rain
haiku 20240109 » Columbia, MD USA
day of kings
sidewalks crowded with
sacrificial trees
haiku 20240110 » Sausalito, CA USA
misty clearing
how our voices carry
among the trees
haiku 20240111 » Roseville, CA USA
morning walk
leaves veined in frost
pave the trail
haiku 20240112 » Palm Springs, CA USA
winter morning
my baby granddaughter
grips my finger
haiku 20240113 » San Francisco, CA USA
foothills winter
still dark at six a.m.
and no stars neither
haiku 20240114 » Sacramento, CA USA
foggy night
street light bursting
through cedar branches
That’s all seven! See you next week! And remember…
I STILL want to send you a card
It’s kinda weird you read my Substack but haven’t requested a card yet. I don’t get it. Please ask! It’s free. I ask nothing in return, aside from your good graces or maybe a cup of coffee if you’re so inclined.
Follow me on Instagram
If that’s your thing… https://www.instagram.com/haikuandy/
And I’m posting reels of each week’s haiku postcards on Instagram. The “live” photos feature lets you see my sloppy attempts to angle in on the best shot. Check it out!
Recommended reading
I heartily recommend all the books below. I get no commission, no nothing if you buy through my links. (Amazon Associates gave me the boot because I didn’t move enough merch. Oh well.)
Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems, Stephen Addiss/Fumiko Y. Yamamoto/Akira Y. Yamamoto
With the exception of The Haiku Anthology (see below), this was the first haiku anthology I bought when I first started sending out haiku cards. I stumbled across this small, beautiful book, while making my requisite writer’s pilgrimage to Shakespeare’s Books in Paris (ooh la la). The richness and scope between the covers in this little book is simply amazing, featuring over 102 poets, many more if you include anonymous authors. It’s my go-to when packing for a trip. Buy it here.
The Haiku Anthology (Third Edition), Edited by Cor van den Heuvel
Want to know what modern English-language haiku really looks like? What it is capable of? Here is your answer, and a must for every haiku poet’s bookshelf. When I first started writing haiku, this volume served me very well. Many of the haiku within have remained with me throughout the years, and I have been privileged to now count some of the contributors as colleagues and friends. Buy it here.
Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku, Natalie Goldberg
Many writers will immediately recognize Goldberg from her forever bestselling Writing Down the Bones. As it happens, she has been writing haiku for her entire adult life, and has much to teach us. In Three Simple Lines, she intertwines memoir, history, and travelogue in a magnificent way as she journeys through Japan, chasing down the ghosts of Bashō and Buson, among others. She also draws much needed attention to women haiku poets, who were too often overshadowed by their male contemporaries. Buy it here.
Mountain Tasting - Haiku and Journals of Santoka … (tr. John Stevens)
I found Santoka challenging at first. Much of his haiku feels incomplete to me or dashed off. But he grew on me. Soon I felt like a companion on his journey, bouncing from inn to inn, begging for alms by day, pounding sake by night. Buy it here.
The Essential Haiku - Versions of Bashō, Buson, & Issa
Essential is right! Edited by Robert Hass, a great poet in his own right. Hass includes great essays on the history and evolution, as well as other writings by the poets themselves. A true master class in haiku! Buy it here.
Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings, Matsuo Bashō (tr. Sam Hamill)
Haiku poets have a tradition of wandering the countryside, and Bashō set the example! Buy it here.
Selected Poems, Masaoka Shiki (tr. Burton Watson)
I wrote a whole post about Shiki. Haiku might not exist today without his influence and renewal of the form. Buy it here.
Issa's Best: A Translator's Selection of Master Haiku, Issa Kobayashi (tr. David G. Lanoue)
Issa is probably the most beloved of the classic poets. His humility and joy in the face of unbearable loss and poverty endear him to haiku lovers everywhere. Lanoue seems to have made translating Issa his life’s mission, and I love his versions. Buy it here.