Rewind: Haiku Highlights from 2019

I’ve been a bit quiet on my blog this year. That’s not to mean I haven’t been actively writing and publishing and whatnot, it just means I got lazy and didn’t post any news with the exception of a post last April. There’s lots to catch up on, so here is my 2019 in haiku, the facts, the figures and a few thoughts for good measure.

I published eighteen haiku and related forms in 2019, and I fell short of my goal for the year which means I have to adjust my goal for 2020. No big deal, really. I set goals to help keep me writing and to stay focused. I try to keep my goals reasonable; 2019 was just a down year. Compared to what I’m used to, 2019’s eighteen poems is a bit disappointing. At any rate, I am grateful for every poem published, and for every opportunity. Here is a list of the journals my work appeared in and how many appeared in each one: Acorn (1), Chrysanthemum (2 tanka), The Cicada’s Cry (1), Failed Haiku (4), Haikuniverse (1), The Heron’s Nest (2), Mariposa (2), Modern Haiku (2), and Prune Juice (3).

I republished some work in five different anthologies in 2019. I had a haiku voted into a hole in the light: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2018 (Red Moon Press, 2019). Three haiku appeared in Local News: Poetry about Small Towns (MWPH Books, 2019). Five haiku appeared in All the Way Home: Aging in Haiku (Middle Island Press, 2019). One haiku appeared in The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku: A Reader Response Approach (Brooks Books, 2019). And while it’s not really an anthology, I had one haiku appear in A History of Modern Haiku by Charles Trumbull (Modern Haiku Press, 2019).

I republished some other haiku in the following places: Charlotte Digregorio’s Writer’s Blog (4x), reVirals 196 (The Haiku Foundation), and in the following Per Diem features (The Haiku Foundation): Parents and Their Kids (edited by Dave Read) and Death (edited by Anna Maris).

I received some awards in 2019 as well, including a couple mentions in The Heron’s Nest Readers’ Choice Awards for having a popular poem and for being a popular poet in 2018, and in March I also received an editors’ choice from The Nest editors for the following haiku:

moving through
a fog of breath . . .
snowy buffalo

 

And my haiku that appeared in The Cicada’s Cry Special Edition for Halloween was picked as editor’s choice:

prairie Halloween–
room in my costume
for a snowsuit

In April, two of my haiku were honored in The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems for 2018. The first one was shortlisted (original publication in Mariposa), and the second one (original publication in Frogpond) was chosen as a winner of the prestigious Touchstone Award (click on the picture for a better view of the poem):

the heartbeat
of a painted pony
winter prairie

 

 

 

 

 

 

One other notable activity was that I was a judge along with Dan Schwerin for the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Awards for books published in 2018.

I filled 20 notebooks in 2019.

All in all, 2019 was a good year for my writing. Many thanks to all the editors who read and considered my work.

Looking ahead to 2020, I’ve already had four senryu published in the January issue of Failed Haiku. I’ve got a haiku pending publication in the next issue of bottle rockets and another in the March issue of The Heron’s Nest. I’ve also got three new haiku (and five previously published ones) accepted for publication in the anthology Last Train Home, which is scheduled to appear sometime this year. 2020 is off to a great start. I hope I can keep it going.

All images and poems copyright Chad Lee Robinson.

 

Rewind: Haiku Highlights from 2018

As 2018 comes to an end, it’s time for one last glance in the rear view mirror.

25 notebooks filled in 2018

I published 46 new poems in 2018, up from 36 in 2017, 38 in 2016, and 40 in 2015. In terms of quantity, 2018 was one of my biggest years so far. They appeared in the following journals: Acorn (1), Akitsu Quarterly (4), The Cicada’s Cry (1), The Cicada’s Cry Halloween Digital Edition (1), Failed Haiku (14), Frogpond (2), Haikuniverse (1), Haiku Windows (4), The Heron’s Nest (5), Mariposa (2), A Sense of Place (3), Wales Haiku Journal (7), and Shamrock (1).

One of my biggest milestones in 2018 was that I reached, and surpassed, 500 published poems. That’s a number I’ve been eyeing for a while.

Other notable publications my work appeared in are: old song: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2017 (Red Moon Press, 2018); Echoes 2 (Red Moon Press, 2018); Four Hundred and Two Snails: Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 2018; The Haiku Calendar 2019 (Snapshot Press, 2018); Earthrise Rolling Haiku Collaborative (The Haiku Foundation, 2018); Per Diem: Daily Haiku (The Haiku Foundation, September 2018, theme of sport), and Charlotte Digregorio’s Writer’s Blog (April 2018).

And hey, I even managed to win a few awards. One of my poems won The Heron’s Nest Award in the June issue of The Heron’s Nest, and another in that same issue received an Editor’s Choice. And a couple other poems received runner-up awards in Snapshot Press’s Haiku Calendar Competition.

As far as the writing itself, I published some poems that could potentially end up in my next collection, tentatively titled The White Buffalo. I also published some senryu about a clown motel, a bit outside of my normal subject matter.

Looking forward to 2019, a number of publications are already in the works. Four new poems will appear right off the bat in the January issue of Failed Haiku, and I have had a poem accepted for the March issue of The Heron’s Nest. I have also had a poem voted into a hole in the light: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2018 (Red Moon Press, 2019). I will have three poems republished in an anthology currently known as Small Town Poetry Anthology, edited by Tom Montag and David Graham for MWPH Books. I’m not sure when it will finally appear, but I have received galley proofs of my poems. I’m very excited to be a part of this one. And I am eagerly waiting for a reply from the editor of an anthology of haiku about trains.

All in all, 2018 was a great year for my writing. My goals are set for 2019, and I’ve already hit the ground running. Many thanks to the editors who published my work in 2018 as well as to everyone to who took the time to check out my blog or Facebook profiles.

Happy New Year!

content copyright Chad Lee Robinson.

November Haiku News

It’s been a busy couple months since my last post. I’ve written lots of new material, and have been publishing widely. The writing has focused mostly on Halloween and related themes, and it’s really been a lot of fun. Out of that I’ve written some poems that are a bit of a surprise, even to me.

In September, three new haiku appeared in Wales Haiku Journal, including this one-liner:

hands all over our summer nights blur together

And this one appeared in the Fall issue of Frogpond:

deep night sky
the dashboard lights too bright
for this loneliness

I also had a poem republished in this year’s Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology titled Four Hundred and Two Snails.

October saw one new poem published in the Fall issue of Acorn:

night train
the slight lift of snow
in the snow globe

And the October issue of Failed Haiku featured five of my senryu, including these two Halloween-inspired ones:

fresh dirt the drag line of a zombie

 

grim
reaper
Wal-Mart
greeter

 

 

More Halloween poems appeared in Haikuniverse and a special digital Halloween edition of The Cicada’s Cry:

playing the record backwards swirling clouds

 

 

 

 

the tune
the embalmer whistles–
mixing drinks

 

 

 

 

 

 

So far in November I’ve had two haiku republished in the Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar 2019. I also published nine new senryu in the November issue of Failed Haiku. One of the nine is this Halloween one:

Halloween sack race–
the skeleton falls apart
at the finish line

 

The other eight from this batch are a bit unusual for me. While I was brainstorming ideas for more Halloween haiku, I thought about writing some about creepy clowns, and I remembered there had been reports of creepy clown sightings. So when I searched online for information about those sightings I stumbled across the phrase “clown motel”. I guess it triggered something, and I wrote a whole string of these goofy things. Here’s a couple:

clown motel–
for assistance
honk nose

clown motel–
a complimentary pie in the face
at checkout

Like I said, goofy. But what’s goofier is that I’ve written more of them!

Anyway, what’s in store for the remainder of 2018 includes one haiku in the December issue of The Heron’s Nest and four haiku in the winter issue of Akitsu Quarterly. I currently have submissions out for consideration at three publications, so fingers crossed for continued success.

Many thanks to the editors of the journals and publications mentioned above.

All poems copyright Chad Lee Robinson.

Photographs taken at the Grey Goose Halloween Display 2018. All Photographs copyright Chad Lee Robinson.

September Haiku Update

It’s hard to believe the last time I posted was in June. Where did the summer go?

I’ve been steadily writing and submitting, and have even had a number of new haiku published. Three new poems have appeared in the haiku column A Sense of Place edited by kjmunro for The Haiku Foundation. Those familiar with my haiku know that place has always been important to me, and the writing prompts for A Sense of Place have been fun to attempt. One prompt asked to explore the sense of taste at the shore, and I came up with this:

surging waves . . .
the taste
of her tan lines

The prompts are currently set in the mountains, and I wrote this for the sense of hearing:

logging trucks . . .
another mountain
loses its voice

and this, for the sense of taste:

campfire coffee
the taste of what can’t be scraped
from the kettle

Recently, I published for the first time in The Cicada’s Cry, a micro-zine of haiku published in Delaware and edited by JM Reinbold:

each fence post
a pulpit . . .
meadowlark song

I also published a new one in the September issue of The Heron’s Nest:

a collie’s bark . . .
last of the winter clouds
driven north

Issue #40 of Shamrock Haiku Journal out of Ireland just published another of mine:

a crow with more
than a thing or two to say
sour wind

And on the horizon, one haiku in the Fall issue of Frogpond, one in the Fall issue of Acorn, and four in the winter issue of Akitsu Quarterly.

Thank you to the editors of the publications above.

All poems copyright Chad Lee Robinson.