Books Acquired Recently: Haiku Edition

Fabre, Gilles, ed. and trans. Early Morning Firefly: An Adaptation of the Japanese Saijiki. Dublin: Fishing Cat Press, 8 November 2024.

There are very few English-language saijiki (compendiums of haiku season words), so when I recently heard about this one I decided to buy it. Following the Japanese publishing custom, it has an exact date of publication rather than just a year of publication.

Henderson, Harold G. An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Bashō to Shiki. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958.

This is one of the first books about haiku ever published in the United States, and it had a huge influence on the English-language haiku community. I decided to buy it to read for historical purposes. Although it remains in print in paperback, I was able to find a hardcover copy of the original edition in good condition for a reasonable price, and bought it instead.

Padden, Lorraine A. Upwelling: Haiku, Senryu, Tanka and Haibun. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2022.

Padden recently had an issue of confluence dedicated to her work, and it is fantastic, so I decided to buy her book.

Writing Activity, January 2025

Since January 2021, I’ve been keeping a list of my writing activity for each month (here’s last month’s). I do so partly as a form of encouragement for myself to show that I am still able to do some writing despite the energy-sucking terrors of our times, and partly as an archive that I can look back on in the future. As such, I include negative happenings (e.g., receiving rejections), not just positive ones.

I think that it is important for me to share my list publicly as a genderqueer bisexual disabled Latinx writer because mainstream discourse tries to either pretend voices such as mine do not exist or actively tries to suppress them. Whether one is part of an oppressed group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times (WHICH ARE ESPECIALLY TERRIBLE IN THE U.S. RIGHT NOW–make no mistake, the current “presidential” administration is a fascist one), so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.

Writing-wise, this month was up and down, but encouraging overall. The list is basically in chronological order.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. Submitted fifteen poems to Acorn and had one accepted.

3. Submitted five poems to whiptail and had them all rejected.

4. Applied to (this began last month) and was named one of Frogpond‘s haiku and senryu editors.

5. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.

6. Had an interview about my book Ethics for Apocalyptic Times published in the Journal of Mennonite Writing. (This interview actually came out at the end of December, but I did not hear that it was out until early January.)

7. Submitted eight poems to seashores.

8. Had my novella manuscript rejected by a publisher.

Books Acquired Recently

Epstein, Andrew. Beautiful Enemies: Friendship and Postwar American Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Epstein writes a blog about the New York School of poets, who I am obsessed with, and I’ve been wanting to buy his book for a while, but it is rare and thus fairly expensive. I used some holiday cash to acquire it.

Suderman, Dale. The Essential Dale Suderman Reader: Journals, Essays, Letters, Interpretations. Edited by Daniel Born. Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2024.

I recently read an interview of Daniel Born about this book, and decided to buy it as a result. Suderman lived his live on the Mennonite margins, much like I do.

Books Acquired Recently

Brown, Keah. The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me. New York: Atria, 2019.

I recently read an interview of Brown in the latest issue of The Writer’s Chronicle, and her writing sounded interesting, so I decided to buy this memoir.

Lehmann, Kat, and Robin Smith, eds. Sea Change: An Anthology of Single-Line Poems; Selections from whiptail: journal of the single-line poem, Issues 1-7. Wilmington, DE: Whiptail Press, 2024.

More and more of my haiku and senryu are one line rather than three, so I thought it would be helpful for me to read this anthology.

I received these two books as late holiday gifts:

Rhodes, Dennis. The OCD Poems. Brooklyn: Indolent Books, 2021.

Weaver, J. Denny. New Moves: A Theological Odyssey. Telford, PA: DreamSeeker Books, 2023.

Books Acquired Recently: Mostly Poetry Edition

Akers, Torey. Revolutionary Algorithms: A TikTok Manifesto. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2025.

Torey was one of my MFA classmates, and her first book just came out!

Brandi, John. The Rain Sweeps Through: A Flurry of Haiku. Chimacum, WA: Empty Bowl Press, 2023.

I recently read a review of this collection and it sounded interesting, so I decided to buy it.

Hawkins, Amanda. When I Say the Bones I Mean the Bones. Eastsound, WA: Wandering Aengus Press, 2025.

Amanda chaired the AWP panel I was on last year. Their new poetry collection was just released.

Rotella, Alexis, ed. Unsealing Our Secrets: A Short Poem Anthology About Sexual Abuse. Rev. Ed. Arnold, MD: Jade Mountain Press, 2019.

I’ve loved Rotella’s poetry since I first came across it when I began investigating haiku. I was recently reading an article by her about her career that mentioned this anthology, so I decided to buy it.

Two friends recently sent me a care package that included the following books of haiku:

Gage, Joshua, ed. The Ohio Haiku Anthology. Cleveland: Cuttlefish Books, 2020.

Kacian, Jim, and Julie Schwerin, eds. A New Resonance 12: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2021.

Prejean, Orrin. Dewdrop World. Cleveland: Cuttlefish Books, 2021.

Writing Activity, December 2024

Since January 2021, I’ve been keeping a list of my writing activity for each month (here’s last month’s). I do so partly as a form of encouragement for myself to show that I am still able to do some writing despite the energy-sucking terrors of our times, and partly as an archive that I can look back on in the future. As such, I include negative happenings (e.g., receiving rejections), not just positive ones.

I think that it is important for me to share my list publicly as a genderqueer bisexual disabled Latinx writer because mainstream discourse tries to either pretend voices such as mine do not exist or actively tries to suppress them. Whether one is part of an oppressed group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times, so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.

Writing-wise, this month was a good month! It was very exciting to get four award nominations for my poetry. The list is basically in chronological order.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. Finished the personal essay about Dungeons & Dragons that I began last month.

3. Had one of the poems I submitted to Frogpond last month accepted.

4. Submitted twelve poems to Blithe Spirit and had two accepted.

5. Submitted ten poems to Haiku Canada Review.

6. Submitted five poems to the 2025 Haiku Canada members’ anthology.

7. Received a Haiku Foundation Touchstone Award for Individual Poems nomination for “pennant race / the cameraman focuses / on the full moon” in #FemkuMag 37 (Autumn/Winter 2024).

8. Received a Red Moon Press Anthology nomination for “when did the magnolia blossoms disappear campus protests” in #FemkuMag 36 (Summer 2024).

9. Received a Pushcart Prize nomination and a Best Small Fictions nomination for my haibun “In my dream they kiss me on the Staten Island Ferry” from Modern Haiku 55, no. 3 (Autumn 2024).

Books Acquired Recently: Post-Holiday Edition

I ordered a number of books (mostly poetry or memoir, as usual) with some money I received as a gift for the holidays. Here are the ones that have arrive thus far:

Blackwell, Danny, ed. and trans. Haiku from Iberia and Beyond. N.p.: Mono Ya Mono Books, 2018.

Chiyo-ni. Chiyo-ni: Woman Haiku Master. Edited and translated by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 1998.

Ellingham, Lewis, and Kevin Killian. Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1998.

Kandel, Lenore. Collected Poems of Lenore Kandel. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2012.

Milholland, Lola. Group Living and Other Recipes. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2024.

Pickens, Beth. Your Art Will Save Your Life. New York: Feminist Press, 2018.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. A Dialogue on Love. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.

Wroten, Kelsey. Cannon Ball. Minneapolis: Uncivilized Books, 2019.

Books Acquired Recently: Holiday Edition

As usual, I received some books as holiday gifts. Here they are:

Granberry, Julian, and Gary S. Vescelius. Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2004.

Jemisin, N.K. The City We Became. New York: Orbit Books, 2020.

Nin, Anaïs. Henry and June: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-32. Boston: Mariner, 1989.

Books Acquired Recently

Anabaptist Community Bible. Harrisonburg, VA: MennoMedia, 2025.

This Bible, which includes commentary from early Anabaptists as well as present-day Anabaptist scholars, is part of the worldwide Anabaptism at 500 project created to celebrate the beginning of Anabaptism on 21 January 1525.

Whitman, Walt. Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself. Illustrated by Allen Crawford. Portland: Tin House Books, 2014.

I received this book as a holiday gift from a good friend. It is an illustrated edition of the 1855 version of “Song of Myself.”

Writing Activity, November 2024

Since January 2021, I’ve been keeping a list of my writing activity for each month (here’s last month’s). I do so partly as a form of encouragement for myself to show that I am still able to do some writing despite the energy-sucking terrors of our times, and partly as an archive that I can look back on in the future. As such, I include negative happenings (e.g., receiving rejections), not just positive ones.

I think that it is important for me to share my list publicly as a genderqueer bisexual disabled Latinx writer because mainstream discourse tries to either pretend voices such as mine do not exist or actively tries to suppress them. Whether one is part of an oppressed group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times (which were especially terrible this month!), so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others. If you, like me, have been having a difficult time since the U.S. election, you may find Bethany Karsten’s Trans Literature Preservation Project helpful as one set of concrete steps you can take to prepare for the horrors that might be coming.

The list is basically in chronological order.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. Submitted fifteen poems to Modern Haiku and had one accepted.

3. Submitted seven poems to a food haiku anthology and had one accepted.

4. Submitted my novella manuscript to a press and had it rejected.

5. Submitted eight poems to Frogpond.

6. Had the second of my commentaries on my fellow confluence fellows, on Nicky Gutierrez, published.

7. Began working on a personal essay about Dungeons & Dragons.

8. Had three poems, “pennant race / the cameraman focuses / on the full moon,” “early evening sunset the color of whiskey,” and “giving blood the nurse’s cologne,” published in #FemkuMag 37 (Autumn/Winter 2024).

9. Had two poems, “cloudless day on the steps the skateboarder’s shadow” and “too early to identify the birds outside my window jetlag,” published in Blithe Spirit 34, no. 4 (November 2024).

10. Had a poem, “bottom of the glass / mixing up / my wives,” published in Humour: The British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2024, edited by Alan Peat.