Haiku Poet’s New Car

Here’s the first poem from my index card boxes for poems that start with the letter H:

haiku poet’s new car     with a moonroof

This one-liner was a bit of an in-joke, given the attraction many haiku poets have for moon haiku. It pleasantly surprised me when the editors of The New Haiku solicited this haiku in 1999 for publication in their anthology. Prior to that I had submitted the poem to Modern Haiku without success, but I succeeded with the journal Snapshots, which published the poem in 1998. The Snapshots editor, John Barlow, also coedited The New Haiku, with Martin Lucas, so they had seen the poem in Snapshots. I’m glad they could entertain this spot of fun in their anthology. I first wrote the poem on 26 July 1993, in Foster City, California. The New Haiku was published in England by Snapshot Press in 2002. And yes, I did eventually buy a car with a moonroof, but not in 1993.

—19 May 2025 (previously unpublished)