Graceguts News

1 May 2025

Some informative, fun, and varied additions to Graceguts in the month of April 2025. Here they are:

• New to the Essays page is “A Late-Night Misadventure with AI Haiku.” I first posted this to Facebook on 15 April 2025, where it generated a lively discussion. Find out what I really think of artificial intelligence, or at least AI “haiku.” I’ve added a new postscript too.

• Speaking of essays, my “Habits of Haiku Scrutiny” essay was recently republished on the New Zealand Poetry Society website, so I’ve added a link to that on my essay’s page.

• A major set of additions is my posting or reposting of numerous “President’s Messages” to the Reports page (a few of these had already been posted as essays, but I’ve rebranded them as “President’s Messages” for consistency, although some are still linked to from the Essays page). In March 2025 I had already posted three earlier messages (from 2000 and 2001), and now I’ve added or rebranded fifteen more (through 2004). Also included with most of these additions is a photo of each issue’s front page. These messages from Tanka Society of America newsletters are as follows, with issue numbers and dates as indicated:

  • • “Tanka Travels” — 2:2, Summer 2001

    • “Hand in Hand” — 2:3, Autumn 2001

    • “Constant Change” — 2:4, Winter 2001

    • “Surveying Recent Tanka Criticism” — 3:1, March 2002

    • “Tanka Elbow Room” — 3:2, June 2002

    • “The Endless Stream” — 3:3, September 2002

    • “A Poetry of Change” — 3:4, December 2002

    • “Peace and War” — 4:1, March 2003

    • “Promoting Tanka” — 4:2, June 2003

    • “A Tanka Turning Point—‘Tanka Day’” — 4:3, September 2003

    • “Acts of Faith” — 4:4, December 2003

    • “A New Year’s Potential” — 5:1, March 2004

    • “Summer Unfolding” — 5:2, June 2004

    • “Nurturing Community” — 5:3, September 2004

    • “The Best Is Yet to Come” — 5:4, December 2004

• Also on Reports, look for the “North American Tanka Contest Results” page, where I’ve added commentary for all selections by Jan Walls, and his two honourable mentions. I found this missing information on the Wayback Machine, which also helped me find compact disc images that I’ve added to the “From Countless Leaves” page (presenting my poems from an anthology that included the winning tanka contest poems, which I cojudged).

• A fun new addition to the Digressions page (linked to from Haiku and Senryu) is “Cabinet of Curiosities,” an art event coordinated by Angie Hinojos. This page shows photos of 20 haiku weathergrams I made by hand (four copies of each), plus photos of my creative process. I was asked to contribute to a public art project in Seattle, funded by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and this new page documents the results. The 80 weathergrams I created were to be given out at a public event over two days in June of 2025, along with 20 laminated copies of my “Miniature Poems” (with 564 of my haiku and senryu in 2.5-point type on a single page). I’ll add event photos after the events happen.

• I have a new trifold! On the Trifolds page, check out “Rengay with Debbie,” featuring five two-person rengay I wrote with the late Deborah P Kolodji.

• New to the Collaborations page (also linked to from Sequences) is “QWERTY,” a haiku sequence I wrote with Brad Bennett and Alan S. Bridges, recently published in Presence.

• Add speaking of collaborations, but on the Digressions page, check out “Two Collaborative Video Poems,” with videos I contributed to. These two short films were shown at the Northwest Film Forum during the Cadence Video Poetry Festival held 24–27 April 2025 in Seattle.

• The Poems by Others page now includes the following three favourite poems:

  • • “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell

    • “Trees Need Not Walk the Earth” by David Rosenthal

    • “The Guest House” by Rumi

• And on the Poems About Haiku page, look for “No Title Required” by Wisława Szymborska.

• On the Commentary page, check out “Wind Tosses Waves,” with thoughts by Michael Blaine on a tanka of mine that won a “Member’s Choice Tanka” award from the Tanka Society of America in 2004. Also on the Commentary page, I’ve added a link to anonymous commentary on the Reedsy website about my “meteor shower” haiku.

• At the end of “Three Tan-renga from ‘Tanka Day’” (available through Collaborations), I’ve added a paragraph of introduction that originally appeared in the TSA Newsletter in 2003.

• Three other small tweaks:

  • • “Dum spiro spero”—Latin for “While I breathe, I hope”—added to “Animated by Hope” (available through the Essays page)

    • Cover image of issue #9 added to the “First Frost” page (available through Digressions); I coedit this haiku journal, and this is the brand-new issue

    • Ardmore Elementary (Bellevue) added to my list of venues on the Venues, Clients, and Partners page

• I’ve also made several updates on my Appearances page, among other tweaks:

  • • “Tanka Society of America 25th Anniversary Celebration” Zoom conference on 6 April 2025

    • “Haiku Targets” Zoom workshop on 27 May 2025

    • “Cabinet of Curiosities” event of June 20, 2025 (details for a June 21 event still to be added)

Meanwhile, on my Rengay website, I’ve added a new section for “Rengay Trifolds,” listed on the home page, with links to five rengay trifolds I have on Graceguts. I’ve also posted two new rengay, “Long Haul” and “Pages,” both recently published in Raining Rengay, written in collaboration with Elaine Riddell and Susan Grant (first rengay) and with Carmen Sterba, Bob Redmond, R. J. Swanson, Angela Terry, and Michelle Schaefer (second rengay).

That’s it for now!