Goal Setting

[Julie B. K.]

This year, I set a goal for myself of publishing a set number of poems.  Having achieved that, I'm wondering what an appropriate goal would be for next year.  Should I strive for more prestigious journals?  Put together a chapbook-length piece or a manuscript?  Focus on contests?  Is there a sort of standard progression that most poets follow? 

Thanks in advance for giving me a peek into your poetic journey.

jublke

[Laura Sherman]

Congratulations on accomplishing your goals this year. Bravo!!

I am very interested in hearing answers to your question. I'm at the stage of thinking that I might be ready to try to get my first haiku published in a journal.

Alan had suggested that I consider writing a series of haiku about my family. I have been working on that and am having fun with that.

Then another friend suggested that I tackle a sequence, which was a new idea for me. I need to research that a bit more, but I like the concept!

One of my projects for this year is to organize HaikuNow (the huge annual haiku contest for the Haiku Foundation).  Would you like to help me with that?

Laura

[AlanSummers]

Hi Julie,

I don't know which haiku magazines you've been published in, or how many, but I guess once you have between 50 and 100 haiku published in respected haiku magazines, online and print, then you have a chapbook's worth of material.  You can then either wait to be approached to be published in a book or self-publish.

It's always good to enter and do well at a couple of haiku competitions at least, and also appear in a few anthologies.  This is so your chapbook will have all the haiku published with a credits list of good respected magazines, one or more competition placements, and an anthology or two.

You've seen some magazines suggested here, and it's good to get published in a good variety of magazines but not just from your country of origin.  There are good haiku magazines in Britain, India, mainland Europe as well as other countries.

Alan

[G.R. LeBlanc]

Congratulations on meeting your goals, Julie!

I'm not sure if there's a standard progression that poets follow, but I'll be interested to hear what others have to say. Personally, I don't like focusing too much on publication because I view it as more of a result. I focus more on trying to write at least a few haiku every week, submitting on a regular basis, targeting new markets, etc.

I will, however, choose one or two markets and then set my mind to submitting to them until they accept something--that's pretty much the closest I get to setting publication goals. I don't think long-term too much either. I figure that if I keep learning, writing, submitting, and targeting new markets, the rest will take care of itself. :)

[Julie B. K.]

Thanks, everyone.  It sounds like I should work on getting a few more publications in some respected haiku journals first.  Laura, if you have some work that I could do long-term to help you out with HaikuNow, ping me off-list and I'll see what I can do.  I'm not much good with the short-term stuff because I still have a little one underfoot at home.     

[Laura Sherman]

Hi!  I'm not sure how to email you separately.  My email is LauraSherman at earthlink dot net.  Feel free to write to me. I'll be on vacation for a few days, but will return Dec 22.

I have three young children, so I completely understand. I'll need help with compiling and admin, as well as promoting.  We're also inviting sponsorship this year, as well.  People can donate $100 and get a link on the HaikuNow site.  I could use some help getting the word out on that!

Let me know what appeals and I'll appreciate any help you can offer. :-)

Laura

[merlot]

To the above very fine comments I would like to add this. If you avoid publishing a chapbook prematurely, then you'll have an easier time gleaning truly good haiku later for a stronger book. The temptation of publishing too early can lead to a collection that is mechanically proficient but lacking a unifying impact or falling a little short of projecting a distinct aesthetic sensitivity.

Also, if a collection is a random collection of haiku--a sampler box of chocolates--then as a whole it may be limited in "meaning" something. That is, there may be no sense of "book statement." The more you write over time, the more you find what it is that you can say.

Note that if you can provide a publisher with 3 times as much material as would be needed, you're allowing that person to pinpoint your finest strengths.

Finally, I think it takes a number of years for one's haiku to reflect a cohesive sensibility. First the craft must be learned. In time, that craft starts to express what one is. There is an interior discovery process in this that can take a while.

[cat]

Hello, Julie,

I totally second merlot -- excellent advice.

Collections work best when there is a unity of theme, a conceptual organization, an emotional arc.  And that means writing enough haiku to discover your, for want of a better term, "big subjects", and perfecting your craft.  A collection that lacks thematic unity is, as merlot says, "a sampler box of chocolates".

In my experience, it's best to write without thinking about publication anyway.  Once a poem is done, then is the time to consider where to send it, or whether to group it with other poems for a future collection.

cat

[Ben M-G]

cat and merlot, I really appreciate the comments on chapbooks and the whole being patient and not trying to publish too early bit. Having started to get some things published myself, I have found myself compelled to try and put a chapbook together. Looking it over, it really is a box of chocolates type of collection. I was wondering if you two could recommend some single poet haiku books that you like and that you feel demonstrate the "book statement" idea. I have primarily been reading anthologies and journals to expose myself to as much as possible, but these don't really capture what you are referring too.

[cat]

Hello, Ben,

Here are a few I would recommend:

The Unworn Necklace by Roberta Beary

A Wattle-Seed Pod by Lorin Ford

A Seal Snorts Out the Moon by Colin Stewart Jones

Sketches from the San Joaquin by Michael McClintock

To Hear the Rain by Peggy Willis Lyles

Late Geese Up a Dry Fork by Burnell Lippy

cat

[sandra]

Sunrise by Peter Yovu

and Inside Out by Christopher Herold, both available on the Red Moon website. http://www.redmoonpress.com/

[AlanSummers]

Some excellent choices of books, and as Cat mentions The Unworn Necklace by Roberta Beary, I had the pleasure of organising a haiku event for Roberta at the Royal Festival Hall in London.  It's a must have book. ;-)
It was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Award.

I'm hoping to organise the booklaunch of the hardback edtiion in the City of Bath (England) with Roberta, which I know will be great fun!  You can order this book at: http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/books/the_unworn_necklace.htm

Another great book I can highly recommend is:
http://area17.blogspot.com/2010/06/water-on-moon-haiku-collection-by-helen.html

Let me know if you can't get the book from the publishers as it may have sold out.  Helen might still have some copies left, and you'd get it signed too!  I had the pleasure of writing the introduction and acting as a consultant editor.

Alan

[AlanSummers]

Another book which is a must is John Stevenson's book:
John Stevenson: Live Again
www.redmoonpress.com 2009 isbn: 978-1-893959-83-5  $12.00

Here's the review if you don't subscribe to the excellent Blithe Spirit magazine of the British Haiku Society:

John Stevenson: Live Again
www.redmoonpress.com 2009 isbn: 978-1-893959-83-5  $12.00

John Stevenson's haiku "the reversible jacket" prompts me to feel there is, in many of us, only one side of that jacket we show to the world for work and play as we go out in a costume, even when there is no fancy dress party.

reversible jacket
the side
I always show

Often we only show the other side of that jacket to a chosen few. This author takes us on a multi-faceted trip round that side yet avoids the pitfalls of over earnest outpourings, of burying us in an avalanche of self-confessions that would require a mountain rescue dog to save us.

seated between us
the imaginary
middle passenger

If this wasn't enough, we  can learn we are the core of our own material: those intimate themes within the circumference of our body space that provide resources to write for ourselves: the author writes "so much/of what I do/involves my body."

Some of those resources from this will be poignant, painful, awkward.

checkout line
my dad
could talk to anyone

midnight sun
I know for a fact
the bottle's half empty

Of course there are weaknesses in the collection, although intriguingly I've come back to them, and found I'm reducing them one by one.  There is a cohesion to this collection, and possibly outside that structure one or two haiku aren't strong enough to stand on their own two feet.  At  92 haiku and senryu; fifteen tanka; one renku; and two haibun I defy anyone to keep such a low count.

This book is divided into two parts: Live; Again.  I'll be going back to this book again and again: sometimes to dip into, sometimes to read cover to cover. It won't always be easy...

I put myself/in the shoes/of a dying friend./He'd moved on by then/in his bare feet...

But sometimes...

A child's/ wide eyes/stares at me./If I could/I'd have a look too.

John, I think you allow us to do just that from time to time:

we're here
we might as well build
a sandcastle

- end of review by Alan Summers, Blithe Spirit Vol. 20 No. 4 (December 2010) -


Book details:
http://www.redmoonpress.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=110&osCsid=999ae19e1524519b1d8e3b3d9a96d75b

Live Again, haiku by John Stevenson $12.00

Live Again is John Stevenson's third full-length book of haiku and related forms (Some of the Silence, 1999 and quiet enough, 2004, First Prize winner of the Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America (HSA), and his fourth collection overall (something uneraseable, 1996). The author has served HSA as President, Treasurer and Editor of Frogpond, its international membership journal. He is currently managing editor of The Heron's Nest.

Red Moon Press
pub. 2009
isbn: 978-1-893959-83-5
Pages: 64
Size: 5.25" x 8"
Binding: perfect softbound

[Don Baird]

A fabulous thread!

[sandra]

I have just posted a review of Peter Yovu's book, Sunrise, on the Haiku NewZ website, please go here:

http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/node/530

Happy reading, you'll soon have a library and wonder how that happened!