Kristen Deming — Touchstone Distinguished Books Award Winner 2017

Kristen Deming is a recipient of an Honorable Mention in the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2017 for her volume plum afternoon (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2017).

Commentary from the Panel:

“As a past president of the Haiku Society of America and active member in the haiku community in Japan for many years, Kristen Deming has written numerous high quality haiku. It is evident great care and restraint was exercised in selecting each poem for her first full-length collection.

“A simple volume of exquisite haiku by a thirty year practitioner of the form, plum afternoon carries readers through the possibilities of the everyday. Beginning with a sense of wonder at daybreak:

dawn swim —
making a butterfly of water
of light

“An apt introduction to this fine collection. From this first exhilarating dip into the water at break of day, we are enchanted by the delicacy of Deming’s voice.

“Then with a specificity and uniqueness of images that could only come from genuine experience, we are invited into the poet’s world.

dawn moon —
grandfather quietly candling
our morning eggs

moss-hung heat
the worm seller wets down
his box of crawlers

“From years spent as the wife of a diplomat, Deming finds ways to gently direct the gaze of her readers and invite them to see what she sees.

casualty lists
smaller and smaller
print

soundless rain —
the names of the fallen
come out of the stones

“Drawn from a depth of experience and handled by a skilled poet, the poems in plum afternoon explore the timeless themes of love, loss and new life in refreshing ways.”

as if his hand
remained in my hand —
sun-warmed stone

alone now
no ruby slippers
to take me home

my body
out of a million mothers —
budding leaves

See the complete list of winners of both Individual Poem Awards and Distinguished Books Awards in the Touchstone Archives.