First Haiku Slam
at the National Poetry Slam

Yes, it’s true. In 1993, more or less on a whim, I entered the first-ever National Haiku Slam held in conjunction with the National Poetry Slam [link no longer works; see the Wikipedia page instead] in San Francisco, 29 September to 2 October 1993. I don’t remember the location, but I do remember that the room was packed with at least a hundred people. I got third place. The eventual winner, who I think was Tracie Morris, graciously told me that I was clearly the only poet writing “real” haiku and should have been the winner. I recall that I won my round to get third place by reading the following poem, instead of reading in-your-face senryu that normally pleased the crowd, and that perhaps the unexpected seriousness of the poem caught the attention of the audience—and the judges who scored the poems for each round:

after the quake

     the weathervane

          pointing to earth

Otherwise, I suspect I performed selections from Fig Newtons: Senryu to Go, or other similar poems. I’ve generally not participated in poetry slams, haiku or otherwise, but have twice been featured poet at the Seattle Poetry Slam [link no longer works; explore various Wayback Machine pages instead], where I read selections of my haiku. These two performances, once with James Whetzel accompanying me with music, have both been for the organization’s annual Haiku d’Etat haiku slam (I was the featured poet before the slam itself). The Haiku d’Etat event in Seattle took place in November every year, in the week before Thanksgiving, and always attracted a hefty crowd, but seems not to have been held since the pandemic started, and may have ended sooner than that.