“The best poets working in haiku are responsive to the conditional aspects of reality, and their work is reflective of this awareness, in terms of form as well as content. The challenge, as always, is neither to innovate for innovation’s sake, nor to constrain for tradition’s sake, but to find exactly the right form, the right phrase, the right context, to express contemporary reality. So long as haiku remains responsive to these changing conditions, it will change and, in doing so, remain vital.”
This quote is from “An Overview of Haiku in English,” by Jim Kacian, an essay from Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (2013, Page 374). Edited by Jim Kacian, Philip Rowland, Allan Burns. Introduction by Billy Collins. W. W. Norton & Company.
WELCOME TO THE HAIKU FOUNDATION EDUCATION WALL. We are beginning our area for Higher Education with an introduction to the Board of Directors: Jim Kacian, Mark Harris, Stella Pierides, Dave Russo, and Billie Wilson. The following selection of haiku from their Poet Pages on the Haiku Registry, which is edited by Billie Wilson, offers excellent examples of contemporary haiku.
swallowflight . . .
looking out the window
long afterpain fading the days back to wilderness
Jim Kacian
exits
sunlight
leaf
(or
wing)burl bark grown into a wound a word
Mark Harris
warm days wrapped up in a word too many
plum blossoms
a handbag mirror
on the garden benchStella Pierides
sun in the bones
of a darting minnow
my cell phone ringsearly morning snow
the janitor shaves
at a barbershop sinkDave Russo
winter wind
a cradlesong sung
in an ancient tonguedeer tracks
through the meadowsweet
first frostBillie Wilson
The Haiku Foundation Digital Library continues to grow and includes almost 300 items. Books from this online collection may be read for free. Our digital librarian is Garry Eaton.
Juxtapositions is a new peer-reviewed e-publication. It is dedicated to haiku research and scholarship. The inaugural issue is due out in Spring of 2015. Editors of JUXTA include Stephen Addiss (University of Richmond), Randy Brooks (Millikin University), Bill Cooper (University of Richmond), Aubrie Cox (Millikin University), and Senior Editor Peter McDonald (California State University, Fresno).
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