Poet Profile

Amelia Cotter

Amelia Cotter is an author, storyteller, and award-winning poet. Her books include the poetry collection apparitions, from Highland Park Poetry Press, and her haiku have appeared in journals like Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron's Nest, tinywords, and many others. In 2023, apparitions was shortlisted for The Haiku Foundation 2022 Touchstone Awards for Distinguished Books as well as nominated for the 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award. Amelia is a member of the Society of Midland Authors.

Awards and Other Honors:

Honorable Mention - Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine World Haiku Competition (2010); Third Place - Haiku Society of America Best Unpublished Haibun Awards (2016); Editor's Choice Haibun - cattails April 2018 Edition; Honorable Mention - Autumn Moon Haiku Contest (2018); and Second Place - Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine World Haiku Competition (2018); Honorable Mention - Sōka Matsubara International Haiku Competition (2020); Honorable Mention - Haiku Society of America Gerald Brady Memorial Award for Best Unpublished Senryu (2021).

Books Published:

This House: The True Story of a Girl and a Ghost (Haunted Road Media, 10th anniversary edition, 2020); Maryland Ghosts: Paranormal Encounters in the Free State (Haunted Road Media, second edition, 2015); the children's book Breakfast with Bigfoot (Haunted Road Media, third edition, 2020); Where the Party Never Ended: Ghosts of the Old Baraboo Inn (Haunted Road Media, 2021); the poetry collection apparitions (Highland Park Poetry Press, 2022).

we hold hands . . .
the coolness
of late summer grass

resolutions . . .
the snakeskin
shed in one piece

stargazing at dawn the nighthawk snatches a moth

shrunken tumors . . .
the sun-painted walls
of my childhood room

parting . . .
he plucks me
a pretty weed

view from the canyon rim . . .
we frame eternity with our hands

Credits:

"we hold hands" - The Sacred in Contemporary Haiku [edited by Robert Epstein] (Create Space, 2014); "stargazing" - Chrysanthemum 15 (2014); "parting" - Modern Haiku 45:2 (2014); "resolutions" - Frogpond36.2 (2013); "shrunken tumors" - Acorn 26 (2011); "view from the canyon rim" - Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku and Haiga (Dos Gatos Press, 2013).