1 August 2026

A poetry highlight for me this summer was winning an inaugural Editors’ Choice Confluence Award with the following poem (be forewarned that it’s a little dark):

letting the moon

into your lung

the bullet hole

I’ve added this poem and thoughtful commentary by David Green to the Commentary page, under “Confluence Award.” This poem is from an otherwise unpublished manuscript of 136 haiku, tanka, and other short poems originally written in 2011.

Another summer highlight was marking twenty years of monthly poetry readings in the SoulFood Poetry Night reading series I started in 2006. About 65 people attended the 20th anniversary celebration at SoulFood CoffeeHouse in Redmond, Washington on 16 July 2026. Attendees enjoyed a rousing performance by Band of Poets followed by an open-mic reading. For the occasion, I read a detailed history of SoulFood Poetry Night by interspersing paragraphs of my text between open-mic readers. I’ve just added “Celebrating Twenty Years of SoulFood Poetry Night” to the Essays page, complete with numerous photos.

The history of SoulFood Poetry Night has included both highs and lows. One of the lows is recorded in a previously unpublished poem titled “Life Support,” which I’ve now added to my Poems page. I wrote this piece for Cara A. Neil, a SoulFood regular who died tragically in July of 2014.

In addition, here are other new additions to my Graceguts website in the month of July 2026:

• The Haiku and Senryu page has a few new additions. On “From Seabeck Anthologies,” look for photos and two poems from the 2022 Seabeck Haiku Getaway anthology, Deepening Leaves.

• “My Poems in Tinywords” now includes the following poem:

election season—

the old logging road

now a freeway

• And “My Poems in Wales Haiku Journal” has the following two poems:

report cards

stuffed in their envelopes . . .

summer heat

rocking it gently

in my arms

broken guitar

• My Haibun page now includes “Gratitude,” also recently published in Wales Haiku Journal.

• I love quotations and have recently added a few of them (and a poem) to the following essays. On my “Defining Moments” essay, look for “I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars,” said by Wisława Szymborska in “Possibilities,” and for “A poet is a time mechanic, not an embalmer” by Jack Spicer. On “Going Nowhere: Learning Haiku from Pico Iyer,” please find this thought from Brother David Steindl-Rast’s book, A Listening Heart: “A strange poem, the haiku! It zeroes in on the here and now which is nowhere.” On “Authenticity in Haiku,” I’ve added a thought from William Stafford, who said, “The moon you are describing is the one you are creating.” And I’ve added a three-line poem by Roger A. Lewin to the second postscript of my essay, “The Seed of Wonder: An Antidote to Haiku Inflation.”

• I’ve updated my Appearances listings with several additions, added “Bellevue Arts Fair (Living Traditions)” to my “Venues, Clients, and Partners” page, added “Rengay Riot” to my “Haiku Workshops” page, and have added images to my “listen” poem and to Tess Gallagher’s “Choices” poem.

Meanwhile, on my Rengay website, I’ve added a couple of rengay to the Two-Person Rengay page. Look for “Bolero,” written with Terri Thorfinnson (from Mariposa) and “Bookends,” written with Garry Gay (from Wales Haiku Journal). Thanks for reading.