Randy Brooks wears many haiku hats (and crowns) — poet, teacher, and
publisher-editor in numerous media. As an English professor at Millikin
University (Decatur, IL), Randy has inspired many students to study,
write, and appreciate haiku, and he’s set up a website that showcases their
work.
With teacher-poet George Swede, Randy edited one of my favorite
haiku anthologies, Global Haiku: Twenty-five Poets World-wide; and with his
wife Shirley, he publishes and edits Brooks Books and its haiku website.
He also finds the time to serve as web editor of Modern Haiku Review.
Randy and Shirley have succinctly described the essence of English-
language haiku:
“The essential element of form in English-language haiku is that
each haiku is a short one-breath poem that usually contains a
juxtaposition of images. Each haiku has a break which makes it
a deliberatrely incomplete literary artifact, prompting the reader
to make a leap of imagination in order to complete the moment
begun by the poet.
“The best haiku capture human perception—moments of being
alive conveyed through sensory images. They do not explain
nor describe nor provide philosophical or political commentary.
Haiku are gifts of the here and now, deliberately incomplete so
that the reader can enter into the haiku moment and experience
the feelings of that moment for his or her self.”
But enough prose — except to thank Randy again for allowing us to 
share in his haiku here at f/k/a. Three haiku from the World Haiku
his artistry and an urge for refills:
hands on the rail . . .
the humpback whale
doesn’t resurface
funeral procession . . .
snowflakes blowing
into the headlights
two lines in the water . . .
not a word between
father and son
Get off the Dime! Thanks to Prof. Althouse for focusing on the Not One Damn Dime! “protest” scheduled for January 20th. As Snopes ably explains, this call to arms — er, call to sit on our hands and our dimes – is lame and doomed to failure. Folks who actually want to say and do something to show opposition to the Administration’s actions in Iraq should consider the following for Inauguration Day:
actually specifying what it is they oppose right now about the USA behavior or policy in Iraq
having a Get Off the Dime/Not in Our Name weblog day, in which the topic is featured and discussed at thousands of weblogs
taking the time on that day to write a personal letter or email to your representatives in Congress and to the President — click CongressLink for an easy-to-use form for finding addresses and sending such messages.
Are Insurers the Med-Mal Whipping Boys? RiskProf Martin Grace has a guest post at Legal Underground today addressing this topic.
trying to salvage some benefit from the load of music overstock-leftover-cutout-stale CDs
in August at Overlawyered, many of the “beneficiary” libraries were far from pleased with the
quality of the 5.5 million CDs doled out in the Settlement — which were valued at $75.7 million
for purposes of determining the plaintiff class’s attorney fees. The Friends of SCPL runs a used
the Library — at 60% off their retail price. I stopped in yesterday, and discovered lots of
copies of Barry White albums, the scores of many unrecognizable movies, and a score or more
of Jessica Simpson’s “Irresistible“ [list $13.99], which is available here new for $2.99. I’ll let you
know just how much money our Library recouped from the Settlement largesse. [We mentioned
our surprise over all this here.]
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