Embedded Files
The following are twenty weathergrams I created for “Cabinet of Curiosities,” a public art project spearheaded by Angie Hinojos. Weathergrams are strips of biodegradable paper tied with string, decorated with a handwritten poetic text. They are intended to be hung outdoors to be read quickly and weathered by nature over time. I first published these poems over a period of about fifteen years, and each one was included in one of my trifolds from 2013 to 2024. In April of 2025, I created eighty of these weathergrams (four copies of each poem), in anticipation of Angie’s “Cabinet of Curiosities” public art giveaway on the Seattle waterfront on 20 and 21 June 2025, for which I was grateful to receive Seattle Office of Arts & Culture grant funding. Here I include a photo of each weathergram, followed by photos showing some of my creative steps. +
As I’ve written on my “Twelve Weathergrams” page, weathergrams were invented by Lloyd J. Reynolds, a master calligrapher at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, who published a book titled Weathergrams in 1972. Reynolds said that weathergrams are “poems of about ten words or less,” and that they are “generally seasonal.” These poems are calligraphed onto strips of biodegradable paper, often grocery bag paper, with a string added so they can be tied onto something for display in public places. He said they should be “hung on bushes or trees in gardens or along mountain trails” for “three months or longer,” where they can “weather & wither like old leaves.”
For the “Cabinet of Curiosities” project, these poems are to be given away to curious passers-by at Pike Place Market near the Seattle waterfront, where twenty laminated copies of my “Miniature Poems” will also be given away, with magnifying glasses. In May of 2025 I also created a new “Cabinet of Curiosities” trifold (shown below).
See also “Weathergrams” and “Make Your Own Weathergrams.”
Promotional images for the 20 and 21 June 2025 art giveaways at Pike Place Market and King Street Station in Seattle (scroll down for more). Other artists include Milagro del Arte, Angie Hinojos, Ilene Lagraba, Hannah Pickard, Berenice Yz, and Maria Zamora. See performance schedule.
missing you—
slowly the ceiling fan
comes to a stop
behind the RV
always the bicycle
with one wheel turning
fog on the window—
the studio artist draws
her breath
spring’s end . . .
two teens on the swing set
not swinging
fallen sparrow—
a dusting of snow
slightly melted
dappled sun—
the carousel stops
on a high note
first day of spring—
I teach my son
how a knight moves
power outage—
we find the candles
with a smartphone
woods walk—
I catch the cobwebs
that miss my son
reaching to the back
of the empty mailbox
summer sunset
fading thunder . . .
the shadow of my pen
on the crossword
roadside stand—
the boy selling cherries
is taller this year
first rose—
my toddler’s breath
parts the petals
ferry gift shop—
all the tourist mugs
gently clinking
Christmas Eve—
bits of a price sticker
stuck to my finger
loons scattering . . .
a floatplane touches down
into summer
shooting star
shouting
shooting star
fading light—
the seedpod rattles
in the baby’s hand
My creative process
My creative process
The following text appeared in a trifold collection of the preceding poems, created in May of 2025, followed here by publication credits for all twenty poems.
Haiku are revelations of curiosity. These poems were all included in “Cabinet of Curiosities,” a free public art project organized for June of 2025 by artist Angie Hinojos on the Seattle waterfront. They were given away as eighty “weathergrams.” I made four copies of each of these twenty poems by penning each haiku in calligraphy on strips of biodegradable paper. I folded over one end and hole[1]punched the strips with stars, hearts, circles, and flowers, tied them with organic string, and stamped them with my red chop (my name in Japanese characters). In arranging the poems here, I shuffled a set of the poems on index cards and accepted the order this chance arrangement produced. Isn’t that what you expect from a cabinet of curiosities? For me, haiku and senryu spring from everyday life, an endlessly astounding cabinet of curiosities.
Each of these poems has appeared in previous haiku trifolds I published from 2014 to 2024 (plus one poem that also appeared earlier). These poems are essentially a best-of selection from ten years of previous haiku trifolds, all available as PDFs on my website for free viewing or downloading. These poems have also previously appeared in the following publications: Carpe Diem: Canadian Anthology of Haiku (Ottawa, Ontario: Les Éditions David and Nepean, Ontario: Borealis Press, 2008), Conversations in Tanka by Amelia Fielden (Port Adelaide, Australia: Ginninderra Press, 2014), Earthsigns: 2017 Haiku North America Anthology (Sammamish, Washington: Press Here, 2017), Fear of Dancing: 2013 Red Moon Anthology (Winchester, Virginia: Red Moon Press, 2014), For a Moment (Pointe Claire, Quebec: King’s Road Press, 2009), Geppo, Glimmering Hour: Haiku Northwest 35th Anniversary Anthology (Bellevue, Washington: Haiku Northwest Press, 2024), Haiku Calendar 2021 (Ormskirk, United Kingdom: Snapshot Press, 2020), Haiku Ireland (Ireland), Hedgerow (England), The Heron’s Nest (online), HSA News (online), A Hundred Gourds (Australia; online), In Pine Shade: 2011 Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology (New York: Haiku Society of America, 2011), Kingfisher, Mayfly, Modern Haiku, A Moment’s Longing: 2019 Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology (New York: Haiku Society of America, 2019), Raven Chronicles Journal, Red Lights, Skylark (England), Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society, String Theory: 2021 Red Moon Anthology (Winchester, Virginia: Red Moon Press, 2022), Tandem (Canada), Tidepools: Haiku On Gabriola (Gabriola, British Columbia: Pacific-Rim Publishers, 2011), Upside Down: 2023 Red Moon Anthology (Winchester, Virginia: Red Moon Press, 2024), The View from Here, Vox Populi: 2007 Seattle Poetry Festival Anthology (Seattle, Washington: Eleventh Hour Productions, 2007), The Wonder Code by Scott Mason (Chappaqua, New York: Girasole Press, 2017), and Wordless: Haiku Canada 40 Years of Haiku (Victoria, British Columbia: Ekstasis Editions, 2017). In addition, “boysenberry cobbler” was part of “Cobbler,” a rengay written with Kristen Lindquist; “dappled sun” won first honorable mention in the 2017 Peggy Willis Lyles Awards and won a first prize award in the 2021 Haiku Calendar contest sponsored by Snapshot Press; “missing you” was featured online as the Haiku Foundation’s Haiku of the Day on 3 August 2024; and “spring’s end” was one of ten winners of the 2021 Bashō-an International English Haiku Competition in Japan, selected by Dhugal Lindsay.
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