Small Things Make Me Laugh

Small Things Make Me Laugh by Yu Chang (2016, Free Food Press, [Rochester, NY]). 46 pages, 5½×8½ inches, perfectbound. No ISBN. $13.00 from Free Food Press.

A pleasing collection of 114 haiku and senryu (one to three per page) by one of haiku’s most reliably rewarding voices. As for the book itself, perhaps more attention to bookmaking necessities would help make the publication more professional, such as including a copyright page, and all the things that go with it, such as an ISBN. Nevertheless, there’s something refreshingly unpretentious about the lack of such formalities. Here’s the title poem: “cherry blossoms / small things / make me laugh.” And a few other favorites: “sports bar / she lets go / of my hand”; “Mobius strip / I am too old / to touch my toes”; “class reunion / the photographer / moves us closer”; “cemetery gate / she lets me / go first”; and “winter evening / a cafeteria tray / at the end of the slope.” Recommended.