Michael,

Sorry, but it's a strikeout. (Not a bad swing, though.) No Japanese would ever write a haiku like this.

On the other hand, here is a fine baseball haiku:

dog days of summer
twenty-three games
out of first Michael Ketchek

Lee

Well, folks, I am afraid it is time for me to get out of town. I deeply appreciate Tim's invitation to join you for a few days as honorary poet lariate. I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed having been roped into your circle.

As a parting gift--or perhaps punishment, you decide--I would like to offer to publish some of the poems you have shared this week. Modern Haiku's normal policy is to pay a token $1 per poem for snail mail submissions. (We normally don't accept email submissions.) MH is a not for profit, so I am afraid we are unable to offer contributor copies. By the way, you can find us at www.modernhaiku.org

If the authors are willing, then, I would like to publish the following:

As hunter's approach
bullfrogs fall silent and--sh-h!
the willows whisper.
--Patricia A. Marsh (Slightly edited)

Flags on the dock
snap in the last warm wind.
I sail onto the trailer.
--Alan Sullivan

moonset, and morning
—late again—rush to catch
the last train
--nyctom

midday torpor
its pages still unread
a book falls open
--Janet Kenny

puddle of shadow
beneath the forsythia --
green eyes. black cat!
VictoriaGaile (slightly edited.)

Combining elements of two versions:

The school-term begins—
crisp chalk, fresh blackboards
chattering children.
--Renate

Also slightly edited:

bare apple trees...
still in my obstinate heart
strawberries ripening
--Henry Quince

thunderstorm passes
broken robin’s egg
alive with red ants
--fivefootone

A snowflake in May,
a sailboat hauled from storage
is offered for sale.
--Timothy Murphy

Particularly outstanding among the poems that don’t fit our charge at MH are Lo’s “Blue Ridge” and “In-Utero.” I think they do deserve a home, so I would like to offer to publish them in my newspaper column in Key West. Thought devoted to haiku, I have a lot more flexibility as to the “haikuness” of what I print there.

So here is the deal. If any of you above would like me to publish your poems, please let me know. If you would send me your poems by mail to Modern Haiku, Box 68, Lincoln, IL 62656 USA with a SASE, I could send you your hard earned dollar. As you might imagine, the first $ from MH is something highly treasured . . . I still have mine (from 1986) as does everyone I know. If you are going to allow us to publish you poem, please let me know how you would like your name to appear. And if we are going to publish, please do not post it in any “public” location” (such as your homepage, etc.) since MH doesn’t publish previously published or posted poems.

Once again, thank you all for a week of pleasure and challenge. You have all been great sports, and have displayed that you all are considerably more talented than I am. But don’t worry—I’m used to it!

With a deep bow . . .

Lee

Lee, so many thanks for your service to the Sphere. I know I've learned a great deal about an art form of which I have been studiously ignorant. You've gleaned about fifteen poems for Modern Haiku and Solares Hill, and we've all gained a learned friend. Keep your password, Lee!

Lee, thanks so much for sharing your tremendous knowledge and good humor with us. I've learned a lot from this thread and from the discussion on haiku form, and I think I speak for many other members as well. Please continue to participate as a member at Erato as often as you have time.

Thanks as well to Tim, whose resourcefulness has introduced us to such a diverse and excellent group of Lariats!

Carol

Lee:

Thank you again. Fun, educational, and the chance to earn a buck! It would be nice if you would make this a yearly visit--think of all the potential new haiku you could gather, not to mention clearing up some misconceptions of what haiku is, and isn't.

Arigato gozaimasu! (who knew my one semester of college Japanese would come in handy one day?)

Tom

Thanks for all the very kind parting remarks. Same time next year? Great movie, but don't think I am going to get an oscar for it!

TTFN!

Lee

Lee,
Your visit like hiaku was brief, but wonderful. Thanks for
sharing your knowledge with us, Renate

Lee,

I'll add my own thanks, again.

Sorry I didn't respond sooner to your excellent answers in the other thread. I do think that a conscientious writer will devise better haiku--not the constructed/manufactured type. I suppose that's true of most kinds of poetry. You also gave me a clue into the writing of interrelating sequences of haiku: the "linking."

Personally, I'd like to see a Haiku forum on Eratosphere someday, or a Haiku/Tanka/Senryu/Zappai forum, not least because the aesthetic and technical requirements of these forms significantly differentiate them from western metrical verse and the open forms of much non-metered poetry. Maybe in that distant time you'd consider dropping by occasionally?

CGW


[This message has been edited by Curtis Gale Weeks (edited May 10, 2004).]

Here's last year's crop, a considerable number of which appeared in Modern Haiku.

the ski-jump's white curve
is visible for miles
except when it is in use

p