Poet Profile

Terri L. French

Terri L. French is a poet/writer and retired Massage Therapist. She is the former editor of Prune Juice: Journal of Senryu & Kyoka. Terri has served as the Southeast Coordinator of The Haiku Society of America and Secretary for The Haiku Foundation, on which she is currently a board member. In 2017 Terri joined the editorial team of the online journal contemporary haibun online. She and her husband, Ray, have four mostly grown children and one spoiled dog. They now enjoy the nomadic life of full-time RVers.

Awards and Other Honors:

Published in the first annual Basho Haiku Challenge Chapbook (Modest Proposal Chapbook: Lilliput Review, 2009); haiku selected for Carving Darkness: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2011 (Red Moon Press, 2012); Touchstone Award for Individual Poem (The Haiku Foundation, 2011); Third Prize and Honorable Mention, Gerald Brady Memorial Awards for Senryu (Haiku Society of America, 2012); Third Prize, Haiku Society of America Haibun Contest (2012); Favorite Senryu, Modern Haiku (Winter-Spring, 2014); First Prize, Wild Plum Haiku Contest (2016); Second Place, Haiku Society of America Haibun Contest (2016); First Place U.S. winner of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival’s Haiku Invitational Contest (2017).

January . . .
loneliness knitted
into a scarf

writing outdoors―
a bug punctuates
my words

perigee moon―
the amateur astronomer
invades my space

distant thunder
the sound of an
ellipsis

child’s drawing
all the birds
below the sky

a spot of blood
on the unfinished quilt―
harvest moon

Credits:

"January" - First Prize, Wild Plum Haiku Contest (2016); "perigee moon" - Modern Haiku (Winter-Spring, 2014) [Favorite senryu of issue]; "child's drawing" - Failed Haiku 1:11 (2016); "writing outdoors" - Basho Haiku Challenge Chapbook (Modest Proposal Chapbook: Lilliput Review (2009); "distant thunder" - Commended, Innovative Haiku Category, HaikuNow! (The Haiku Foundation, 2013); "spot of blood" - Sketchbook (Sept/Oct. 2009).