Book of the Week: tule

Fred Raborg was one of the drivers of haiku (and other) literature at the end of last century. His Amelia Press produced the journal Cicada (and vehicles dedicated to several other genres) as well as one of the first chapbook contests in the genre. tule (Amelia Press, 1986) shows him as a poet of his time — many of these poems seem word-logged, but we know he streamlined things as he matured. Here’s a taste, then, of what haiku were like in the 1980s.

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Haiku featured in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by THF president THF president Jim Kacian, and are used with permission.

where unborn tadpoles
tumble in their clustered eggs —
rolling Groucho eyes
quiet room —
the dominoes click
with the clocks
old dinosaur ones
reassembled into beasts
a cockroach climbs