I Still Want to Send You a Haiku
All seven daily haiku from Haiku Andy 06.10.24 - 06.16.24
I’ve been fortunate to have a slew (slough? slue?) of new subscribers and followers, and want to tell them (and remind everyone else) that each card you see here is subsequently snail-mailed to someone.
People give me their addresses (which I guard and share with no one) and I pull their names out of a hat in random order.
To be honest, I have a lot of trouble keeping a decent supply of recipients, and periodically need to beg people to let me please send them a haiku. Why do I mail each card to someone? Because the idea of an actual human being reading my haiku on a card makes me write better haiku.
So please, click here and it will open up an email with the subject line already filled in. Send me your address (as over 1600 people already have) and I’ll mail you an original haiku postcard, just like the ones in the photos!
Anyway, here are last week’s seven haiku, and where the lucky recipients live…
haiku 20240610 (Albuquerque, NM USA)
coming home at night
a fox crosses
my headlights
haiku 20240611 (Berkeley, CA USA)
walking in the woods
thorny vines on every side
berry season soon
haiku 20240612 (Salem, OR USA)
heat wave
my dogs chomps
on a sprinkler
haiku 20240613 (San Francisco, CA USA)
heat wave
laughter and splashing
from the neighbors' pool
haiku 20240614 (Laurel, DE USA)
balmy evening
poets gather under
lamp light and trees
haiku 20240615 (Salem, OR USA)
tai chi practice
bare toes widening
on hardwood floor
haiku 20240616 (Altadena, CA USA)
crossing the great bridge
pine and eucalyptus,
the sea-kissed air
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/
I also post reels of each week’s haiku postcards on Instagram. The “live” photos feature reveals 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, zip zero nada, if you buy through my links. (Amazon Associates gave me the boot because I didn’t move enough merch. Oh well.)
Milkweed: Selected Haiku & Senryu, by Alexis Rotella
I kinda-sorta reviewed this must-have collection in my post Milkweed by Alexis Rotella: A Master Class. Buy it here.
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. 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. 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.
I took a workshop from Michael Dylan Welch on Tuesday evening and am so eager to write more haiku. I read your haiku in a completely different way after the workshop because I could really see the structure and turn.