A Sonic Boom of Stars

A Sonic Boom of Stars: 2020 Southern California Haiku Study Group Anthology, edited by Beki Reese and Susan Rogers. Temple City, California: Southern California Haiku Study Group, 2020. 134 pages. 5½ by 8½ inches. ISBN 978-0-578-64794-4. For purchasing details, please contact socalhaikustudygroup@gmail.com or visit the SCHSG website.

English-language haiku organizations have a rich tradition of putting together annual anthologies. Haiku Canada had been doing that before I became a member in 1988. In 1993 I persuaded the Haiku Society of America to add the tradition for its members. Both organizations’ anthologies feature one haiku per member, either previously published or not. The British Haiku Society’s annual anthology has a new theme each year and seeks work that has not been published before. Smaller groups have this tradition too, to feature their members’ haiku, either annually or periodically, such as the Haiku Northwest group I’m part of in the Seattle area, along with other organizations across the country. One such local group, producing one of the largest and most varied member anthologies, is the Southern California Haiku Study Group. Their 2020 anthology, A Sonic Boom of Stars, serves as an example of how local haiku anthologies celebrate and promote work by group members.

The book is divided into four main sections. After a foreword from the group’s moderator, Deborah P Kolodji, and introductions by each of the editors, Susan Rogers and Beki Reese, the largest section is “Haiku and Senryu,” for 76 pages. Each contributor has a page to themselves, with one to four poems per person. After this is a short section of “Foreign Language Haiku” that seems unnecessary and is not limited to Southern California residents. The first poem here is by a poet whose poem appears in Georgian, French, and romaji script for Japanese, but there seems to be no justification for this, as with two haiku by Mexican residents that follow. It’s unclear why they’re included (the introductions provide no explanation). This may have been because of the pandemic when group meetings shifted to Zoom and invited participants from farther afield, and perhaps they were guest speakers or attendees, but an explanation would have been helpful. After this is another section that feels unnecessary, titled “Haiku Windows,” featuring contributions to a Haiku Foundation website initiative collecting poems by SoCal members who participated. The section also includes poems by that website’s editor, who doesn’t even live in the United States, let alone Southern California, but the poems were seemingly included in a spirit of generosity, and to recognize one of the group’s activities during the year. The thirteen poets that follow do at least live in SoCal, but it seems that this is another organization’s project that feels out of place in this anthology, even if it’s something its members contributed to. After this comes seventeen haibun, most of them fitting a single page. One of them is by Lois P. Jones, poetry editor for Kyoto Journal, and Lois also helped with the book’s cover design. Prior publication credits and an index round out the book. Throughout this collection, it would have been useful for each person to be listed with their location (where they live in Southern California), which could have added a bit more colour and context to each of the poems.

Here are two sample poems, one by each of the book’s editors:

finally mountain chapel

the moth and me       wiping off the dust I read

going to sleep             my mother’s name

Beki Reese Susan Rogers

The following are a few other favourite selections.

mountain lilac

the lingering scent

of desire

Peggy Castro

night breeze

     in the cottonwood leaves

       pieces of the moon

Don Eulert

full of water

the bowl gives back

the moon

Peter Jastermsky

coral necklace

the stories

we hand down

Deborah P Kolodji

grunion

on night-wet sand . . .

my lover’s hand

Naia

mountain rain—

I pause to inhale

the view

Stevie Strang (who also provided the book’s cover image)

A pleasing aspect of this collection is that it includes poets who are not necessarily active with national or international haiku journals, so these pages serve to introduce new voices to a larger audience. A Sonic Boom of Stars includes both published and unpublished work. Credits for the previously published poems may inspire newer participants with information on places where their fellow members have been published. Others send unpublished work, contributing to a possible variability in quality (since the published work tends to be better), because every member who submits is guaranteed inclusion of at least one poem. One detail that sets this anthology apart from membership anthologies from the Canadian, American, and British organizations, though, is that many times more than one poem is selected, giving a fuller picture of each person’s voice. The book’s 21-page haibun section also adds to this fuller picture. A Sonic Boom of Stars joins a growing line of annual membership anthologies that does the Southern California Haiku Study Group proud.