Librarian’s Cache: American Haiku – Journal of the Month, May 2021

American Haiku is featured in the journal collection of the THF Digital Library. The journal was founded in 1963 and continued publication through 1968. It was the first journal dedicated to haiku in English and a video by The Haiku Foundation, American Haiku, the First English-Language Haiku Journal, features a panel discussion on its founding and significance to the haiku world.

The meeting was held at The Cradle of American Haiku Conference III in Mineral Point, Wisconsin in July, 2012. It featured Don Eulert (co-founding editor), Gayle Bull (wife of late co-founding editor James Bull), haiku historian Charles Trumbull and was moderated by Jerome Cushman.

Haiku from a 1968 issue include:

on the evening sky
      the smudge of the last buzzard
            sliding into night

lean donkey grazing
      at the edge of the cornfield –
           tomorrow the load

flung out of its pot
     a red geranium blooms
           on the compost heap

Be sure to check out all 12 issues of American Haiku in the Digital Library.