I (re)started this project on August 1, 2022, meaning I am one month shy of completing another year of writing a daily haiku and mailing it to all you good folks, plus many more who don’t even subscribe to this Substack.
That’s a lot of postcards, and I have no intention of stopping for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for following along! It means a lot to me.
haiku 20230626 » San Francisco, CA USA
nightfall
we linger outside and
just let it happen
haiku 20230627 » San Francisco, CA USA
how quiet
this small garden
wind through aspens
haiku 20230628 » Stroud, United Kingdom
lytton trail
a lone magenta flower
next to bike tracks
haiku 20230629 » Heber City, UT USA
thirty-five years
sharing the same bed
her eye mask askew
haiku 20230630 » Teaneck, NJ USA
no breeze today
the dust we kick up
hangs in the stopped air
haiku 20230701 » San Francisco, CA USA
new tai chi practice
all the old moves
awkward again
haiku 20230702 » San Francisco, CA USA
triple digit heat
from shade to shadow
we find our path
That’s all seven! See you next week! And remember…
I 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.
Buy haiku books
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 merchandise. Oh well.)
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 the sake at 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 work, and I love his versions. Buy it here.
Thanks for doing what you do!