Because time is the only thing you can spend here at f/k/a (along, perhaps, with your patience), we can’t offer you any Cyber Monday Specials this morning. You can browse the pixelated aisles of our Main Page for free any day to stumble serendipitously across haiku and senryu from some of the finest haijin around (and by the Editor’s nepotistic alter ego dagosan), along with the priceless punditry of Prof. Yabut, ethicalEsq and the rest of the f/k/a Gang.
And, you can always head to our Guest Poet Archives Index to find the home page of a particular poet: from roberta beary to billie wilson and everyone in between (randy brooks; yu chang; tom clausen; devar dahl; devar dahl; alice frampton; laryalee fraser; barry george; lee gurga; carolyn hall; gary hotham; kobayashi issa; jim kacian; david g. lanoue; rebecca lilly; peggy willis lyles; paul m; ed markowski; matt morden; pamela miller ness; w.f. owen; tom painting; andrew riutta; john stevenson; george swede; hilary tann; michael dylan welch).
Nonetheless, if you’re itching to spend some money on Cyber Monday, I thought I’d remind you about a few books we’ve highlighted this year at this weblog. Each contains haiku or senryu written by one or more of our f/k/a family of Honored Guest poets, and each is a bargain at its everyday price. [In the next couple of days, I hope to spotlight echoes 1, the new anthology from Red Moon Press, which updates the haiku careers of the poets featured in Red Moon’s always-giftable “New Resonance” series of “emerging” English-language haiku poets — many of whom are now part of the f/k/a family.]
We’ve told you often about the 200-page Baseball Haiku (Cor van den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura, eds., W.W. Norton Press, April 2007), with sampled poems by our Honored Guests, such as here, there, here, can there. One reviewer correctly noted that this book might make baseball fans out of haiku lovers and haiku lovers out of baseball fans. You do not have to be a weblog-diva Yankee partisan, nor a Bay State blogging BoSox booster, to ask Santa to bring you this book. Don’t just take my biased opinion (as a two-poem contributor to the book and friend of many of its writers); see the review of Baseball Haiku by npr’s Scott Simon in the Summer 2007 edition of Modern Haiku.
empty baseball field
a dandelion seed floats through
the strike zonevillage ball game
through knotholes in the old fence
evening sunbeams…………………… by George Swede – Baseball Haiku (2007)
“empty baseball field” – orig. pub. Almost Unseen (2000)
“village ball game” – orig. pub. As Far As the Sea Can Eye (1979)
p.s. Additional proof that this book belongs in your collection: It will be featured, on June 26, 2008, at the Chautauqua Institute [NY], during its Sport in America week (2008 program page). Cor will lead a discussion and readings from the book, joined by two other major contributors, Alan Pizzarelli and our Ed Markowski.
In October, we got all dreamy-eyed telling you about The Unworn Necklace: Haiku and Senryu, by Roberta Beary (Snapshot Press 2007). It’s Roberta’s first individual collection and is a classic for the ages. Indeed, your favorite divorce lawyer, blawger, or mediator, or recently-divorced friend, won’t have to be a haiku lover to love this book — for its truths and its hope.
autumn breeze
the new smell
of my red jacketlaundry day
rain becoming snow
becoming rain
custody weekend 
inside her backpack
cinderella
it’s over
slicing his shirt
for the ragbag…………… Roberta Beary, The Unworn Necklace (2007)
See our post reproducing Pamela Miller Ness‘s chapbook “The Hands of Women,” which celebrates the “needlewomen” in Pamela’s life with a remarkable sequence of 6 haiku and 4 tanka. At the foot of the post, you will find details for ordering the lovely little book directly from Pamela; it’s the perfect $5 stocking-stuffer for someone who knits or crochets in your family. Here are the opening and closing poems:
first day of the year
I take up my needles
and knit a rowBinding off
the baby blanket
I wind
and store the unused yarn.
Last day of the year.
Just last week, we wrote at length praising Stumbles in Clover by Matt Morden (Snapshot Press 2007). If you, or a weblogger you know (like the Host of this week’s treat-filled Blawg Review #136), likes the “u’s” left in your haiku (or knows what a “cockle truck” is), this volume out of the UK might be just the thing:
afternoon thaw
a car parked across
two lined spaces
bend in the road
what little colour’s left
in the floral tribute
…………………. Matt Morden, Stumbles in Clover (Snapshot Press, 2007)
If your giftee would prefer to eschew the soft, artsy haiku realm, don’t forget our review of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet (Yale Univ. Press, October 2007; download Chapter 1 here for free).
googling the poet –
she finds an advocate and
a sex offender……………………………………………. by dagosan
afterthought (Nov. 28, 2007): Many thanks to Anne Reed at Deliberations, for pointing to this post, and then compiling her own “Gift Ideas for Jury Fans” (Nov. 27, 2007). Anne notes “None of these books is about the courtroom, or even about the law. There are lots of books about juries and trial work, and many are tremendous, but they’re not where my focus has been lately. Instead, writing about juries has drawn me to authors who challenge my thinking about how other people react, respond, decide, and simply are.”
In case Anne’s family and friends miss her hint, wishing for a haiku book for Christmas, I hope she does a little self-help and prints out one of dagosan’s tri-fold haiku/senryu brochures.
As noted above, we plan to do a positive mini-review of echoes 1, soon. It contains this poem, which belongs in one of our posts on sex offender hysteria:
summer’s end
i stop myself talking
to a stranger’s child………………………… by matt morden, orig. pub Presence 19