Poet Profile

John (Jianqing) Zheng

John Zheng, born in the 1950s in China, is editor of Valley Voices: A Literary Review, a national magazine that publishes stories, criticism and poetry including haibun.

Awards and Other Honors: Literary Arts Fellowship in Poetry (Mississippi Arts Commission, 2014 and 2004); Winner of the 2001 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition (2001); National Endowment for the Humanities grants (2007 and 2013.

Books Published: African American Haiku: Cultural Visions (Edited, University Press of Mississippi, 2016); The Other World of Richard Wright: Perspectives on His Haiku (Edited, University Press of Mississippi, 2011); The Landscape of Mind (Slapering Hol Press, 2001); Deltascape; Found Haiku (Yazoo River Press, 2006); The Porch (Yazoo River Press, 2006); minis (Yazoo River Press, 2008).

sudden rain
the toddler’s hands reach
for the sky

Fly-fishing the pole bends toward red sunset

blues song
picking the way
into cottonfields

almost ashore
the ga-ga-ga
of two ducks

daylilies – mom’s laughter everywhere in the garden

summer dusk
as still as the algaed pond
a dead frog

Credits: "sudden rain" - A Hundred Gourds 5.1 (2015); "blues song" – The Heron’s Nest 15.1 (March 2013); "daylilies" - Chrysanthemum 18 (2015)"fly-fishing” – Asahi Haiku (5/15/2015); "almost ashore" – Mainichi Haiku (5/7/2014); “summer dusk” - Chrysanthemum 18 (2015).