Remembering Carlos Colón
I wrote the following on 7 February 2017 in a Facebook message sent to June Rose Dowis for a retrospective tribute celebration for Carlos Colón held in Shreveport, Louisiana on 23 February 2017. See also my review of Clocking Out, which contains the cat poem mentioned here.
23 April 1953 – 30 October 2016 (age 63)
Carlos Colón was well loved for his haiku and other poetry, not to mention being Haiku Elvis. He always showed great tonal range in his poems, embracing the serious, the funny, and the poignant—he was always creative. He also employed a range of styles, including haiku, senryu, tanka, concrete poems, and longer poetry. Carlos was a stalwart contributor to National Haiku Writing Month on Facebook (which first started in February of 2011), and I published his work in Woodnotes, Tundra, and various Haiku North America conference anthologies. I was also honoured to have him publish my work on the Electronic Poetry Network and in its accompanying anthology. I am sorry that we will not see any more of the inimitable poetry and memorable performances of Carlos Colón. Here’s a poem in his honour, remembering a cat poem of his I first published in Woodnotes more than twenty years ago:
where has he gone . . .
his cat’s tail
forms a question mark
This is the last poem Carlos Colón posted to his Facebook page, on 29 October 2016, the day before he died (a Haiku Elvis poem):
brisk
encore . .
. . before
the donut
shop closes
