Poet Profile

Michael Ketchek

Has been writing haiku for over 25 years.

Books Published: Road Work (Black Bough, Flemington New Jersey, 1995); I Write Friend (Tiny Poems Press, Enfield Connecticut, 1997); Over Our Heads (Swamp Press, Northfield Mass, 2010).

dog days of summer
twenty-three games
out of first

sixty-four colors
she crayons the house
the dog, the sky red

Anne Frank’s diary
would you hide an Arab
in your attic?

my hand is too large
a child reaches through the fence
and plucks the raspberry

rolling a cigarette
the canoe drifts
just where I want to go

first time swimming
with my son in water
over our heads

Credits: "dog days of summer" - Modern Haiku 34:1 (2003); "Anne Frank’s diary" - Bottle Rockets 14 (2006); "rolling a cigarette" - Frogpond XXV:1 (2002); "sixty-four colors" - Bottle Rockets 23 (2010); "my hand is too large" - Modern Haiku XVII:2 (1986); "first time swimming" - Frogpond XX11:3 (1999).