First Time Here?
Why Graceguts?
Michael Dylan Welch and Lenard D. Moore, editors. Kate MacQueen, illustrations. Press Here, Sammamish, Washington, 2008, 36 pages, 71 poets (one poem each), ISBN 978-1-878798-29-9.
The 2007 Haiku North America conference took place at the Hawthorne Inn and Conference Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. From the introduction: “This book’s title comes from Garry Gay’s poem, and it is to Garry that we dedicate the 2007 Haiku North America conference anthology. It was his idea back in 1990 to start the conference, with the first one taking place in California in the summer of 1991. It immediately became the major gathering of haiku tribes in North America, and has been held around the continent every two years since then. . . . The wish in this book’s title poem drifts away like a dandelion seed, as fleeting and ephemeral as the moment that haiku reveres. Unlike that wish, the wish that Garry had for Haiku North America has not drifted away. Instead, it has seeded and taken root. The anthology you hold in your hand, the ninth in the series, is evidence of the continued growth and vibrancy of the haiku community in North America.” Here are twenty-one sample poems from the book.
the larger trout.
of purple sandpipers . . .
