Woodnotes — #12

Spring 1992

One of the most significant essays published in Woodnotes was “Some Notes on Haiku Moments and Prepositions” by Cor van den Heuvel, which appeared in issue #12. Cor wrote that “prepositions are essential to English-language haiku, for to create an image one has to place things in space—such words as ‘in,’ ‘on,’ and ‘of’ enable us to positions things so that we can ‘see’ them.” Marlina Rinzen won this issue’s Woodnotes Award, and I offered an extended haibun, “Darkened by Shadow,” about the Gulf War. A tanka by Dave Sutter appeared in this issue, the only previous tanka being two that appeared in issue #7. With this poem, tanka would appear in every issue of Woodnotes that followed, ultimately amounting to about ten percent of the total number of poems published in the journal (256 tanka in total). A new feature in this issue was “Double Take,” a one-page column that invited previously published poems so they might have a second life. Although this column did not last long, it was an example of trying something new, which the journal did in numerous ways over its 31 issues.

Staff

  • Editors: Christopher Herold and Michael Dylan Welch

  • Typesetting and layout: Michael Dylan Welch

  • Cover and interior art: clipart

Pages 32

Haiku/Senryu 82

Tanka 1

Haibun 2

Essays 1

Reports 2

Mini-Reviews 8

Contents

Woodnotes Award

stillness

of the mist . . .

white rowboat

Marlina Rinzen

Selected Poems

brushing my old dog—

a house wren waits

to line her nest

Hank Dunlap

upon reflection

only myself

in the pool

Laura Bell

spray from the hose—

my home

at the rainbow’s end

Barbara Herold

the thin soles

of old sandals:

summer’s end

Peggy Willis Lyles

sixteen floors up

on the window ledge

a grasshopper

Marianne Monaco

immigrant graveyard

tombstones lean east

lean west

Jerry Kilbride

strangers claim

the pup we found

my daughter’s tears

J. Ervin