Woodnotes

From 1989 to 1997 I edited the quarterly journal Woodnotes. I was not involved with the first two issues, but took over doing layout and design with issue #3, for which I served as associate editor. I soon became coeditor, and then primary editor, and took over the journal as an independent publication (from the Haiku Poets of Northern California) in January of 1996. I ended Woodnotes after issue #31 in late 1997 to start my new journal for short poetry, Tundra. For most of its existence, Woodnotes was one of the leading journals for English-language haiku, publishing a mix of haiku, senryu, tanka, haibun, rengay, essays, reviews, and news items relating to haiku. It also sponsored what I believe to be the first-ever haibun contest in English, resulting in the anthology, Wedge of Light. Although news and event information in Woodnotes focused on Northern California, subscribers hailed from around the world.

I have now built an extensive section on this website devoted to Woodnotes and its best poems, essays, and other contributions, as a record of its highly regarded history. See “Selected Haiku and Senryu from Woodnotes,” “Woodnotes Award Winners,” “A Short History of Woodnotes,” and what is probably the most important and influential essay Woodnotes ever published, Keiko Imaoka’s “Forms in English Haiku,” in its definitive version, together with commentary and other supplementary material.