Joy Is My Middle Name

First published in Woodnotes #16, Spring 1993, page 30.

Joy Is My Middle Name by Francine Porad. Vandina Press, 1993, 36 pages, paperback, 5½ by 4¼ inches. $5.00 postpaid from the author at P.O. Box 1551, Mercer Island, Washington, 98040 [address no longer correct]. A brief, accessible collection of poems written in memory of “GG.” This simply printed book with bright red end sheets contains 26 haiku and five tanka, almost all presented one to a page. Some of the “tanka” are essentially haiku broken into five lines (such as “holding / her hand, / I reach / inside / the coma”), but most poems reverberate clearly. A favorite one-liner:

spring rain kitten in the lee of the rock