Poet Profile

Carolyn Hall

Carolyn Hall discovered haiku in 1999. Since then her haiku have been widely published and anthologized in the U.S. and abroad. From 2008 to 2012 she was editor of Acorn, a journal of contemporary haiku. For more than 20 years she has been an active member and officer of the Haiku Poets of Northern California. She edited two issues of the HPNC annual Two Autumns anthology. Since 2018 she has been the editor of Mariposa, the HPNC journal. She has four award-winning collections of haiku, and Red Moon Press has recently published a fifth volume.

Awards and Other Honors:

Featured in A New Resonance 2: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2001), and Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, W.W. Norton & Co, 2013. Poem of the Year and Poet of the Year, The Heron's Nest Readers' Choice Awards (2005), and The Museum of Haiku Literature Award (2006 and 2007). Water Lines [Snapshot Press, 2006] was Joint First Prize winner in the Snapshot Press Haiku Collection Competition (2004) and took Second Place in the Haiku Society of America's 2007 Merit Book Awards. Winner of the True Vine Press Autumn Chapbook Contest (2007). How to Paint the Finch’s Song [Red Moon Press, 2010] was a Winner of The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards and an Honorable Mention in the 2011 Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards. The Doors All Unlocked [Red Moon Press, 2012] was awarded First Place in the 2013 HSA Merit Books Awards and was a Winner of the Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards. Calculus of Daylilies [Red Moon Press, 2017] won Third Place in The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards. She took First Place in the Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Awards, the Haiku Poets of Northern California Haiku Contest, the HPNC Senryu Contest, the Hawaiian Education Association Humor Contest, the Washington Poets Association Contest, and the Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar Competition. Her poems have featured in the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku nearly every year since its inception.

Books Published:

One Hundred Gourds [editor], (Two Autumns Press, 2003); Water Lines (Snapshot Press, 2006); In and Out of Shadow (True Vine Press, 2008); How to Paint the Finch's Song (Red Moon Press, 2010); The Doors All Unlocked (Red Moon Press, 2012); The Color of Water [editor] (Two Autumns Press, 2013); Calculus of Daylilies (Red Moon Press, 2017); Cricket Dusk (Red Moon Press, 2020).

so suddenly winter
baby teeth at the bottom
of the button jar

Mother's Day
the commotion in the tree
becomes a heron

baiting one fish
with another
autumn dawn

twilight
the poultry truck returns
with empty cages

circle of lamplight
I complete the baby quilt
begun for me

slave cemetery
the tug of the current
on willow fronds

Credits:

"so suddenly winter" - The Heron's Nest vol. VII No. 1: Editors' Choice (2005); "baiting one fish" - The Heron's Nest vol. IV No. 11: Editors' Choice (2002); "circle of lamplight" - The Heron's Nest vol. IX No. 1 (2007); "Mother's Day" - Mariposa #18 (2008); "twilight" - The Heron's Nest vol. V No. 8: Editors' Choice (2003); "slave cemetery" - The Heron's Nest Award: The Heron's Nest vol. V No. 6 (2003).