haiku in English

Poetry Collection ‘a silence or two’ wins Merit Book Award

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 2 Comments

I am extremely honored and humbled that my most recent book, a silence or two (Red Moon Press), has received a 2025 Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America.

According to the Haiku Society of America, the HSA Merit Book Awards “recognize the best haiku and related books published in a given year in the English language.”

a silence or two is a deeply intimate poetic statement. It is raw, visceral. It deals with subject matter at once personal and universal—the body and it failings, trauma, death, loss, identity, and ultimately, the state of fractured wholeness so deep a part of our shared humanity in a broken world. This collection manifests in imagery and narratives that transcend the “objective realism” common to haiku to explore precarious terrain—namely the often unvoiced emotions hidden where flesh, soul, and spirit intersect in the depths of embodiment—for which expected languaging and usual modes of discourse are often insufficient.

Rattle poetry journal editor Tim Green and I discuss a silence or two extensively on Rattlecast.

It is significant that the emotional journey of this collection unfolds in haiku and short prose poems. Haiku tends to be viewed by poets and non-poets as a sort of toss-off genre unworthy of the kind of deep and rigorous study poets and literary scholars routinely devote to other genres. This common misconception and others, however, overlook centuries of profound and profoundly moving poetry in haiku’s original Japanese traditions and in the more recent though vibrant English-language tradition, to which the likes of Richard Wright, Sonia Sanchez, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Jane Hirshfield have made significant contributions.

Common misconceptions about haiku also fail to consider that, like all other artistic genres and mediums, haiku invites exploration and the expansion of expressive possibilities. Indeed, haiku is a poetic vehicle uniquely and powerfully suited for conveying extraordinary ways of seeing the world and giving voice to the limitless depths of human emotion.

On every page of a silence or two, I broke the cardinal rules of English-language haiku and pushed other boundaries in ways that some would see as taboo. I am hugely gratified that HSA Merit Book Award competition judges Scott Mason and Patricia Machmiller saw the value of those risks for this book as a work of art and for the genre of haiku in English more broadly.

My deepest thanks and a deep bow to them. Deep thanks also to Jim Kacian and Red Moon Press for publishing this collection.

Announcing the arrival of a silence or two

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ Leave a comment

I am extremely excited to announce the publication of my most recent poetry collection, a silence or two, by Red Moon Press.

Hailed as “a stunning collection … destined to become a haiku classic,” a silence or two mines the territory of loss, healing, transformation, and joy in haiku and short prose poems that take the haiku form and narrativity between genres into new expressive ground.

Read advance praise for a silence or two from Cherie Hunter Day, Dr. Richard Gilbert, and Michelle Tennison and check out my other books on the Books page. You can also purchase copies from there (click on the book cover images) and through the Order page.

My deepest gratitude to Jim Kacian, founder and president of The Haiku Foundation and publisher at Red Moon Press, for guiding this collection into the world with such patience and care.

Inaugural Heliosparrow Frontier Awards Honor Cutting-Edge Poetry

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Photo: via Wikimedia Commons Lisa Mastino, CC BY-SA 4.0

I’m humbled to have received four First Prize honors, three Honorable Mentions, and a Special Award for haiku recently in the inaugural Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards.

All of the awarded poems and the judges’ fascinating and extremely rich commentary on them are published in Helioparrow Poetry Journal and in the flipbook at this link.

The awards were created by Dr. Richard Gilbert, professor emeritus of English, Kumamoto University, and one of the world’s leading theorists and critics of contemporary English-language haiku, “to present and praise leading-edge poems and poets illuminating inspiring directions in haiku poetics.”

All of the poems under consideration for the Frontier Awards were published in Heliosparrow Poetry Journal – the world’s leading publication of avant-garde English-language haiku and poems in related genres – which Gilbert founded and edits.

Gilbert, Heliosparrow co-editor Clayton Beach, and poet Michelle Tennison served as judges for the haiku, alterku (poems that expand the haiku form), sequence/collaborative poem, and short poem categories in the contest. I was also honored to judge the haibun category, and to join Gilbert, Beach, and Tennison in judging the alterku and sequence/collaborative poem categories, in which my own work was not in the running.

Far from traditional haiku rooted in the seasons of the non-human natural world, the poems recognized in the inaugural Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards reinterpret the traditional haiku form through daring language, startling imagery, bold disposition on the page, and challenging subject matter and psychological nuance.

To read these poems is to look into the future of English-language haiku.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Two Haiku by John Hawkhead

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 1 Comment

Ronnie Robertson - moonlight
Photo: Ronnie Robertson/Creative Commons/Flickr

Vivid imagery and brilliant understatement are at work in British poet John Hawkhead’s “Spring moon” and “ink of night” haiku.

Aided by the white light of the moon – that feminine celestial presence – the poetic speaker goes beyond viewing the implied aftereffects of a woman’s lumpectomy or mastectomy and “explores” the “trail” these scars have left on her body. Against the backdrop of spring – the season of renewal and freshness – the chiaroscuro of the moon’s spotlight beaming through dark of night surrounds the telltale signs of a deadly disease. Hawkhead’s “Spring moon” is imbued with life and death, light and darkness. It is a snapshot of the cycle of life itself, every moment at once new and dying.

Spring moon
I explore the lustrous trail
of her breast scars

***

This poem’s opening line – not the typical “dark of night,” but instead “ink of night” – suggests police fingerprint ink and a grim scene leading up to it. Under the nails of the poem’s subject is “the evidence” of some crime. We might assume the woman is a victim who fought back against her attacker, but is that too facile? Hawkhead’s poem leaves just enough room for interpretation to make it tantalizing.

ink of night
under her nails
the evidence

John Hawkhead is a writer and illustrator from the South West of England. His haiku and senryu have been published all over the world and his book, Small Shadows, is available from Alba Publishing.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Two Haiku by Debbie Strange

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 9 Comments

Jackie Finn-Irwin - Purple African Violet
Photo by Jackie Finn-Irwin/Creative Commons/Flickr

Launching the 2018 International Women’s Haiku Festival are two gorgeous haiku by Canadian poet Debbie Strange.

Taken together, these two poems convey volumes about women’s experience. In “sisterless . . .” the special relationship that only sisters can share is viewed from the vantage point of its utter lack, and illustrated with the heartrending image of a star falling into permanent darkness in a lake.

“African violets” is a compassionate take on the parts of our lives that we may prefer to leave in the relative safety and comfort of the vagueness of the past. Likening the “fuzzy details” of the past to bold and beautiful (and, yes, fuzzy) African violets acknowledges that even the shadows of one’s past are still, in their own unique ways, beautiful and brilliant.

sisterless . . .
another star falls
into the lake

***

African violets
the fuzzy details
of my past

Debbie Strange (Canada) is an internationally published short form poet, haiga artist and photographer whose creative passions bring her closer to the world and to herself. She is the author of Warp and Weft: Tanka Threads (Keibooks 2015) and the haiku chapbook A Year Unfolding (Folded Word 2017). You are invited to visit her publication archive at http://debbiemstrange.blogspot.ca/.

“jazz brunch” Haiku Named a “Judge’s Favorite” in 2018 Golden Haiku Competition

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 5 Comments

It was a pleasant surprise to learn that, again this year, one of my haiku will be displayed in the Golden Triangle district in Washington, D.C., as a “Judge’s Favorite” in the 2018 international Golden Haiku Competition.

Here is my haiku, selected from a record 1,700 submissions from around the world:

Hambrick - jazz brunch

Here are my poems selected in the 2017 Golden Haiku Competition.

I love public art and am thrilled that one of my poems has been selected for this major public art project. My thanks to this year’s competition judges, Abigail Friedman, John Stevenson and Kit Pancoast Nagamura.  And hearty congratulations to my fellow poets whose work was also selected.

‘concrete jungle’ Haiga Receives Honors from World Haiku Association

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 3 Comments

Hambrick - concrete jungle2
‘concrete jungle’ © 2017 Jennifer Hambrick. All rights reserved. First published in the online exhibition of the World Haiku Association’s 159th Haiga Contest, 24 Dec. 2017.

I am greatly honored that my haiga “concrete jungle” has been selected for the online exhibition in the World Haiku Association’s 159th Haiga Contest.

Whether you live deep in the heart of a city, or commute to and from an urban area, we are surrounded by the elephants of the modern world – highways, bridges, overpasses, train tracks, skyscrapers, and all other marvels of engineering. They help us get from Point A to Point B in (usually) record time. They help us maximize vertical space in an overcrowded world. And they help us traverse and even inhabit spaces normally friendly only to fish or fowl.

But while these gargantuan structures my seem miraculous, as products of steel and cement – and no small amount of blood, sweat, and tears – they, like us, are destined to decay and disintegrate.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I shot the photo in my ‘concrete jungle’ haiga beneath an overpass that spans a busy urban thoroughfare. The pile of concrete shards on the ground at the foot of the wall that supports the overpass is a metaphor for the decay that will eventually claim all things born of the human intellect and made of human hands.

I am most grateful to judge Kuniharu Shimizu for selecting my haiga for this honor.

Poem Wins Sakura Award in 2017 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival International Haiku Invitational

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 2 Comments

Cherry Blossoms - Susanne Nilsson
Photo: Susanne Nilsson (Creative Commons/Flickr)

I was surprised and delighted to learn from a fellow haikuist that one of my poems recently received a Sakura Award in the 2017 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival International Haiku Invitational.

My haiku was one of 15 by U.S. authors recognized with Sakura Awards in this year’s competition. In addition, a single poem was named Top Winner in the U.S. category, and another 25 U.S. poems were given Honourable Mentions.

Of the 41 U.S. poems granted awards, fully six – close to 15 percent – are by poets living and working in my home state of Ohio.

The theme of this year’s Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational was “freedom.” My poem speaks to the world of possibilities that await people of all ages and from all corners of the globe who seek to build their lives in freedom and peace:

an old man
learns two new words
cherry blossom

My heartfelt congratulations to the winning poets in all divisions of this year’s competition, and my sincere gratitude to the competition judges, Angelee Deodhar, Billie Wilson, and DeVar Dahl.

Hot Honeymoon Haiku Published in The Asahi Shimbun

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ Leave a comment

Doug Kerr Charleston photo Creative Comons Flickr
Charleston, South Carolina.  Photo: Doug Kerr (Creative Commons/Flickr)

We were happy. And at the same time, we were wrecked.

Fifteen years ago, my then brand-new husband and I were walking around beautiful Charleston, South Carolina, on our honeymoon hot and wilted. All the hype and hoopla of our wedding the day before had taken the starch out of us, so we just thought we were dragging from plain old exhaustion.

But we learned later that day the we had actually been walking around Charleston in 104-degree heat.  And, given that this was June in Charleston, heaven only knows what the humidity was.

But though we were wrecked, we were happy.

So, on June 2, the fifteenth anniversary of that sweltering day, it was a delight to see my haiku inspired by our honeymoon published in Japan’s leading daily newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun, in a special column devoted to honeymoons.  My sincere thanks to editor David McMurray.  Here is my haiku:

Hambrick preacher's pulpit haiku

 

My “Paper Roses” Haiku and the Story of the Very Special Artwork That Inspired It

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 3 Comments

I love it when a project of unassuming origins takes on a life of its own.

My “paper roses” haiku, which the Italian haiku poet Elisa Allo recently featured and translated into Italian on her blog, Ama no gawa, recently found itself in the middle of such a project.  Little did I know that my haiku contains a pun that is impossible to translate into Italian.  Elisa presented the haiku with a beautiful graphic and an explanatory note about the translation:

Hambrick Paper roses haiku - 1

 

Hambrick Paper roses haiku - 2

My “paper roses” haiku might not have come about in the first place had it not been for the phenomenal artwork a group of Columbus-area elementary school students and a recent event of the Ohio Poetry Association.

In April, the Ohio Poetry Association published a statewide anthology of ekphrastic poems (poems inspired by other works of art), A Rustling and Waking Within.  The anthology was a project many years in the making and was guided into the world with selfless love and generosity by editor Sharon Fish Mooney.

A Rustling and Waking Within cover

The anthology launch party last month at Columbus’ Wexner Center for the Arts (“the Wex”) featured poets, including myself, from all around Ohio reading aloud poems in the anthology.

In the run-up to the event, I volunteered to acquire flowers to adorn the small reception tables where poets would gather to nosh and sip before and after the readings.  Unable to secure a donation of real flowers, I turned to Plan B: paper flowers.

I asked one of my co-workers if her husband, an elementary school art teacher, might think it a good project for some of his art students to make a few dozen paper flowers for the anthology launch party.  It just so happened that one of his classes of third graders loves to do origami – so much so that their teacher often has to collect any artwork they create on paper right after they finish it, lest they fold it into something else!

Moreover, my colleague’s husband knew just the right pattern for paper flowers, one which he himself made many times and sold at modest cost.  Over the next few weeks, Jon Juravich, the art teacher at Liberty Tree Elementary School in Powell, Ohio, led his students in making three dozen paper flowers, which they then donated to the Ohio Poetry Association for use at the anthology launch party.  As you can see from the photo Jon took, the students’ work is simply gorgeous.

Jon Juravich student paper flowers
Paper flowers made by the third grade art students of Jon Juravich at Liberty Tree Elementary School, Powell, Ohio.  Photo by Jon Juravich

But the final presentation was stunning.  Jon hot glued the paper “blooms” onto tree twigs he had painted black.  I placed one  or two stems into each of several tall bud vases and placed a vase on each of the small tables at the Wex.  Quite simply, the students’ flowers were a hit.

At the anthology launch, I asked OPA president Chuck Salmons and other organizers of the event to sign a thank-you card for Jon and his students.  For my part, I wrote an original haiku – my “paper roses” haiku, which Elisa Allo later featured and translated into Italian – inspired by the students’ phenomenal paper flowers.  Jon shared the thank-yous, kudos, and haiku to his students.

Fast-forward to April 30, when the Ohio poet Beverly Zeimer’s chapbook the Wildness of Flowers was published by the Cleveland-area publisher NightBallet Press.

Beverly Ziemer chapbook cover
Photo by Dianne Borsenik, with Photo Lab PRO

On the cover of Beverly’s chapbook, in the center of a swirl of gardenia blossoms, is a picture of one of the vases of the Powell students’ paper roses sitting on one of the tables at the OPA anthology launch party.

So, finding flowers (or rather failing to find flowers) for a major poetry event inspired a creative project for some talented third-graders, which both turned into a haiku inspired by the paper flowers they made and which is now translated into a foreign language on a blog an ocean away, and became cover art for a poet’s chapbook published right here in Ohio.

Somewhere in this story is a lesson about synchronicity.  But here’s the most powerful lesson: positive energy begets positive energy, and the creative spirit, when embraced, nurtured, and loved, cannot be stopped.

I thank Elisa Allo for welcoming my “paper roses” so beautifully into the world, and I thank Jon Juravich and the third grade art students at Liberty Tree Elementary School for their talent, generosity, and inspiration.