First Notes

First Notes by Dan Curtis. Winchester, Virginia: Red Moon Press, 2024. 116 pages. 4.25 x 6.5 inches. ISBN 978-1-958408-47-6. $20 from www.redmoonpress.com.

It seems fair to say that many books of poetry are celebrations, especially first books. That’s true of Dan Curtis’s First Notes, his premiere collection of haiku that celebrates a decade of devotion to the haiku genre. In his bio note, he says he’s “relatively new” to haiku, having had his first haiku published in 2014—a modest statement regarding his perception of experience. Though seemingly “new” to haiku, Curtis shows that he’s a seasoned writer, as the extensive publication acknowledgments testify, and as the poems themselves confirm. These haiku notes are strong ones. The book’s title poem, the first notes / of a familiar song / winter solstice, reminds us that the subjects of most haiku themselves are familiar songs—as they should be. Curtis has divided his book of 101 haiku and senryu into five pleasingly named and mostly seasonal chapters: “Moon Halo” (13 winter poems), “Sun Puddle” (24 spring poems), “Sweet Melon” (29 summer poems), “Frost Shadow” (23 autumn poems), and “Nightfall” (12 perhaps miscellaneous poems that tend to focus on growing old). Here’s a choice selection from each chapter:

the fridge shuts off    sound of snow

hospice lounge

the jigsaw puzzle

unfinished

family picnic

a thundershower

clears the air

salmon spawning eagles

my friend

in high places

the moon

Such immediacy, recognition, and delight in these examples. I could showcase many other favourite domestic and nature-focused poems from each section. First Notes celebrates the author’s rich contribution to close seeing, and I invite you, as a reader, to join the celebration. There’s a quiet confidence to these astutely observed poems, a sure-footedness that shows Dan Curtis to be an old soul at the haiku art.