Poet Profile

Abigail Friedman

Insatiably curious, Abigail has been a wanderer and dreamer all her life. She began composing haiku when, as an American diplomat in Japan, a chance encounter led her to join a Japanese haiku group that met at the foot of Mt. Fuji. Her book, The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 2006), captures that experience and her insights into haiku as taught to her by Momoko Kuroda, one of Japan’s most influential contemporary haiku poets. When she returned to the U.S., she continued writing haiku, making the transition to writing poetry in English. In 2006, she moved to Quebec City, where she served as U.S. Consul General. There, she founded HaikuQuebec, the first French/English bilingual haiku group in Quebec City. Abigail’s haiku, haibun, and writings on haiku have been featured in poetry publications in the U.S., Canada, France, and Japan, including: Frogpond; AOI; The Asahi Weekly; Association Francophone de Haiku (AFH); The Moss at Tokeiji (Deep North Press, 2010); Regard de femmes: Haikus francophones (Editions Adage, 2008); Ecris-moi un jardin: Haikus de saison au Jardin Van den Hende (La couverture magique productions, 2009); La nuit des gueux (Editions La Plume Libre, 2006); and Bilboquet. She has presented her work before the AOI haiku organization in Tokyo as keynote speaker for their 25th anniversary; the Japanese Embassy's Japan Information and Culture Center (JICC) in Washington, D.C.; Haiku Poets of Northern California; the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival; the Festival international de la poesie de Trois-Rivieres; Haiku Canada; and Haiku North America. She is a frequent judge of haiku contests and, in 2012, she was commissioned to compose a haiku to mark the U.S. gift of dogwoods to Japan, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Japan’s gift of cherry trees to the U.S.

Awards and Other Honors: First prize, Mainichi international haiku contest (2014); Second Prize, Mainichi international haiku contest (2012); Grand Prize, Yamanashi Mt. Fuji haiku contest (2011); Honorable Mention, Mainichi international haiku contest (2008); Finalist, Kiriyama Book Prize [for The Haiku Apprentice] (2007); Second Prize, Mainichi international haiku contest (2006).

Books Published: Street Chatter Fading (Larkspur Press, 2015), a collection of the author's haiku; I Wait for the Moon: 100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda (Stone Bridge Press, 2014), translations and commentary on the work of contemporary haiku poet Momoko Kuroda; The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 2006); Watashi no haiku shugyo (Iwanami Shoten, 2010) [Japanese translation of The Haiku Apprentice with an addendum of 36 of the poet’s haiku, in English and Japanese]; Preface to Ecris-moi un jardin: Haikus de saison au Jardin Van den Hende (La couverture magique productions, 2009); Haibun in The Moss at Tokeiji (Deep North Press, 2010).

Pearl Harbor—
shadows of young fish
cross the wreckage

crowded commute
zooming my phone to Mt. Fuji
her moon-white peak

where your car stood
an empty space
-- the cry of gulls

gentle summer night
my daughter’s sobs
the sound of trains passing

early summer
I take off my watch
the cool of my wrist

end of summer—
in my son’s room
I try on his shoes

Credits: "Pearl Harbor" - in English and Japanese, Watashi no haiku shugyo (Iwanami Shoten, 2010); "where your car stood" - in English and Japanese, Watashi no haiku shugyo (Iwanami Shoten, 2010); "early summer" - in French, Second prize, Mainichi International Haiku Contest (2006); in English with Japanese translation, in Watashino haiku shugyo, Abigail Friedman (Iwanami Shoten, 2010); "crowded commute" - Grand Prize, Yamanashi Mt. Fuji haiku contest (2011); "gentle summer night" - Tracing the Fern [Michael Dylan Welch and Billie Wilson, editors] (Press Here, 2005); "end of summer" - In French, Regard de femmes : Haikus francophones [Janick Belleau, editor]  (Editions Adage, 2008); in English with Japanese translation, Watashino haiku shugyo, Abigail Friedman (Iwanami Shoten, 2010).