1 August 2022
The largest addition to Graceguts in July of 2022 is a new top-level menu addition featuring Blurbs. This page documents all the books I have a record of for which I’ve written blurbs of various kinds, complete with book images, links, and other details. A new photo link for the Blurbs page also appears on the Graceguts home page. In addition to various new event listings on my Appearances page, here are all the other site updates from July 2022:
New to Poems About Haiku is an Issa-related poem, “Sushi Dreams,” by Mark Tulin. And on Poems by Others, look for “Cherry Blossoms” by Toi Derricotte.
New to the Interviews page is “Haiku by Michael Dylan Welch,” an English translation of “Featured Poet: Michael Dylan Welch” written by Leticia Sicilia Saavedra. Previously, only the original Spanish was on Graceguts.
On the Sequences page, look for “Seven Suns Story,” a previously unpublished narrative sequence originally written for my Seven Suns / Seven Moons book, but not included. And speaking of this book, its listing on the Books page now includes three blurbs from the book’s back cover. Also on the Sequences page is “Covid Days,” a pandemic collaboration published in 2021 in Haiku Canada Review.
New to the Reports page are my selections and commentary for the “2022 Japan Fair Haiku Contest.”
On the Digressions page, a new “Childhood Journaling” essay discusses my hand-written juvenile European journals, and I also mention my ski journals and high school journals. Also on Digressions, the “Haiku North America” content now lists the theme for each conference.
On the Haiku Workshops page (available through Workshops), I’ve added new listings for “Haiku Checklist” and “Déjà-ku: Nothing to Fear.”
On the Essays page, a new postscript after the “Punctuation in Haiku” essay explains why punctuation should never be counted among the sounds or syllables in either Japanese or English-language haiku. It mystifies me why some people continue to believe this illogical fallacy.
Throughout my Books page, I’ve added links to relevant Press Here listings wherever the book is a Press Here publication.
On the page for Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by Bunch of Our Friends, available through the Press Here page, I’ve added bios and sample poems from each of the book’s twelve contributors. And for all pages featuring sample poems for Haiku North America conference anthologies, I’ve added links to the relevant Press Here book page.
On the Haibun page, I’ve added a fifth new postscript to my “Hearing the Owl” haibun, this one about Bruce Cockburn’s “Wondering Where the Lions Are” and how this buoyant song relates to my sense of longing and belonging.
On the Videos and Interviews pages, a new addition is a link to my 2010 recording for the Jack Straw Writers audio blog. The Videos page now also includes star symbols to indicate the recordings I recommend most.
On the Collaborations page, check out the new link to “Pilgrims’ Stride,” a renku to which I contributed a cherry blossom verse, available on the Haiku Foundation website.
And on the Poems page, my previously posted “Your Second Heart” poem now includes event photos and an artist’s statement from this poem’s inclusion in the April/May 2022 exhibit, “Ars Poetica: An Intersection of Poetry and Craft” at the Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network on Bainbridge Island, Washington. My poem was featured with a glassworks interpretation by Constance Ducar.