Poet Profile

Brad Bennett

Brad Bennett is an elementary school teacher in the Boston area. He has taught haiku classes for children for over twenty years and has also led haiku walks for adults. Brad’s haiku and senryu have appeared in a variety of magazines, journals, and anthologies. His essay “Children’s Haiku Books: An Annotated Bibliography” appeared in Modern Haiku 46:3. Brad co-chairs the Education Resources Committee of The Haiku Foundation with Jeannie Martin. He is a member of the Summer Street Haiku Group and the Boston Haiku Society.

Awards and Other Honors: Brad’s poems were featured on the Mann Library Daily Haiku Page during the month of September 2014. He was the “Featured Poet” in the January 2015 issue of Cattails. He was one of the poets chosen for A New Resonance 9: Emerging Voices in English-language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2015). Two of his poems appeared in Red Moon Press anthologies in 2015 and 2016. His work was chosen for a Modern Haiku “Spotlight” in issue 47.1. Brad won first place in the 2014 San Francisco International Senryu Competition (Haiku Poets of Northern California), second prize in the 2013 Kaji Aso Studio International Haiku Contest, third place in the 2016 United Haiku and Tanka Society “AHA” Contest, and honorable mention or runner up in the June 2011 The Heron’s Nest Award, the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Haiku Calendar Competitions, the Haiku North America 2013 Haiku Contest, the 2013 Autumn Moon Haiku Contest (Bangor Haiku Group), the 2014 and 2016 Kaji Aso Studio International Haiku and Senryu Contests, the 2015 Porad Award Contest, the 2015 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku International, and the 2016 Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Award Competition.

Books Published: a drop of pond (Red Moon Press, 2016).

a drop of pond
at the end of a beak
setting sun

commuting
on Monday morning—
the new moon’s nothing

company for lunch
a dozen eggs knock
against the pot

spring for a day until one day spring

fall into winter
the leaf and its shadow
frozen together

Grand Canyon
neither of us mentions
the silence

Credits: First publication: "a drop of pond” - The Heron’s Nest XIII: 2 (June 2011); “company for lunch” - Kaji Aso Studio International Haiku Contest (2013); “fall into winter” - Acorn 30 (Spring 2013); “commuting” – A New Resonance 9: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2015); “spring for a day” – bottle rockets #31 (August 2014); “Grand Canyon” – Honorable Mention, Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Award Competition for 2016; Modern Haiku 47.2 (Summer 2016).