Four Haiku

Haiku is the most-popular, least-understood poetic form in the world.  In Japan, its birthplace, it’s not simply a writing style but a way of life.  Yet in some American schools, it’s taught as if it were merely a pretty little nature snapshot, a syllabic puzzle.  To my mind, a haiku is more like the experience of a skipped stone crossing a wide pond – yet only touching the surface a few times, those few precise images.  And when the momentum ceases and the stone disappears from view, suddenly we too become aware of how far the mind has traveled, the wealth of implication, and the watery depths there beneath our feet. Brad Bennett is a third grade teacher who began writing haiku in college but, over the last fifteen years, has developed real mastery in the form, making its practice central to his daily life.  His poems have appeared in most of the important haiku journals like Presence, Akitsu Quarterly, and Modern Haiku, and have been awarded honors too numerous to mention.  He’s published two collections – a drop of pond (which won a 2016 Touchstone Distinguished Book Award from The Haiku Foundation)and a turn in the river – both published by Red Moon Press – where most of these poems appear.