Fire in the Treetops

The biennial Haiku North America conference celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary with Fire in the Treetops. This anthology assembles all the haiku and senryu published in previous conference anthologies, from 1991 to 2015. An extensive introduction by editor Michael Dylan Welch explores the history and future of the conference, and short essays by thirteen contributors feature poems selected from each conference. Christopher Patchel provided linocut artwork, and Scott Mason served as coeditor of the new “Once Upon a Time” section for the 2015 conference that took place October 14–18, 2015, primarily at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

Explore the book

• Contents (includes a list of 13 essay contributors)

• Introduction (“The Democracy of Haiku” by Michael Dylan Welch)

• Contributors (more than 500 poets)

• Once Upon a Time (new poems selected from the 2015 section)

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2015, perfectbound, 416 pages, 7 x 10 inches, ISBN 978-1-878798-37-4

• Shortlisted for the 2015 Touchstone Awards from the Haiku Foundation.

• Read reviews on Goodreads.

• Read a review by Vicki McCullough.

• “The art of haiku is mature and popular in the English language. If the existence and success of the biennial Haiku North America conferences do not sufficiently attest to this, now comes additional proof. Fire in the Treetops compiles more than a thousand haiku and senryu from all thirteen HNA anthologies from 1991 to 2015, a time when poets were stretching their wings, shaking off the restraints of Japanese traditions, and exploring new, individual approaches to this historical poetic genre. The poets whose work appears here comprise a veritable who’s who of English-language haiku. I can hardly think of a single prominent North American haiku poet whose name cannot be found here. Fire in the Treetops chronicles the florescence of North American haiku and we might well consider the index of poets to be its pantheon. Michael Dylan Welch has done an enormous service for the North American haiku community.” —Charles Trumbull, editor emeritus, Modern Haiku, and past president, Haiku Society of America

• “This collection is important first because of the quality of work contained within its covers but also for the method of collection/selection that has been used. For the last 25 years, every two years, poets from around the world meet at Haiku North America events. Among the presenters and attendees are some of the best haiku poets in English, and most, if not all, of the best editors of journals of haiku. Although the presentations at these gatherings are themselves meaningful and allow for a full creative review of the form, with each gathering two editors are chosen to create a collection of the best haiku submitted by the attendees. This collection puts the last 25 years of these publications in one place for the first time. Over 400 pages of the best haiku in English, edited by established experts in the form, make this one of the most important publications of this type since The Haiku Anthology [edited by Cor van den Heuvel] was published decades ago. The variety and the quality of haiku in this collection makes it a valuable teaching tool for poets looking for a fuller understanding of the breadth and width of haiku in English today. . . . If you have any interest in haiku, then this book is a must-read for you. A lot of books on haiku are not the ‘real deal,’ but this one is, and is essential to own for any poet or lover of the form.” —Michael Rehling, on Amazon