Woodnotes — #19

Winter 1993

This issue of Woodnotes was a harbinger of things to come when it jumped to 52 pages (the previous high was 36), including 107 haiku and senryu (the previous high was 102) plus six tanka (also a high). Recent issues featured no interior art, but issue #19 included sumi-e illustrations by Kay F. Anderson and Michael Dylan Welch (we were both taking a sumi class together). Results of the 1993 HPNC haiku and senryu contest results were announced, judged by Hal Roth, but there was no tanka contest this year (it would return in 1994). Paul O. Williams offered an important essay, “Engagement and Detachment in Haiku and Senryu.” Six pages of the journal were occupied by “The Woodnotes Survey Summarized” by Michael Dylan Welch, which set out a useful roadmap for both Woodnotes and the Haiku Poets of Northern California. This report noted that we had previously had a two-poem acceptance limit per poet (which a great majority of respondents voted to keep in place) and that Woodnotes received “nearly 800 poems per issue, just under nine percent of which are now tanka” and that “we publish less than 12 percent of poems submitted.”

Staff

  • Editor: Michael Dylan Welch

  • Associate Editor: Ebba Story

  • Typesetting and layout: Michael Dylan Welch

  • Cover art: clipart

  • Interior art: Kay F. Anderson and Michael Dylan Welch

Pages 52

Haiku/Senryu 107

Tanka 6

Essays 2

Reports 1

Book Reviews 3

Mini-Reviews 9

Editorials 1

In response to a survey about Woodnotes reported on in this issue, readers offered the following anonymous comments:

  • “I prefer Woodnotes to all the other [haiku journals].”

  • “Writing in Woodnotes from articles to book reviews is fine writing.”

  • “Woodnotes has more quality control than others.”

  • “Woodnotes has changed gradually and elegantly through the years.”

  • “I love your magazine as is; [it is] a different format from the other available haiku vehicles.”

  • “Woodnotes is just fine . . . content superb.”

  • “Woodnotes is always on time. Bravo!”

  • “[Your] periodical has gained widespread respect.”

  • “I find your selection of haiku especially well-advised and refreshing.”

  • “Woodnotes is a great publication.”

Contents

  • “A Note from the Editors”

  • Woodnotes Award, won by Winona Baker

  • “Engagement and Detachment in Haiku and Senryu” essay by Paul O. Williams

  • Dream anecdote by Ebba Story

  • Tanka

  • Haiku and Senryu

  • HPNC 1993 San Francisco International Haiku and Senryu Contest, judged by Hal Roth

  • “The Woodnotes Survey Summarized” essay by Michael Dylan Welch

  • Woodnotes (news)

  • Of Books and Things, with notes by Michael Dylan Welch

  • Book Reviews by James Chessing and Kay F. Anderson

Cricket Song by John Thompson

Wings of Moonlight by Garry Gay

Fig Newtons: Senryu to Go, edited by Michael Dylan Welch

  • Meeting Report by Tom Lynch

Woodnotes Award

falling snow

white envelopes drop

through the mail slot

Winona Baker

Selected Poems

snowman finished . . .

thought the carrot they begged

was to be his nose!

Patricia Neubauer

wren eggs!

my foot

in mid-air

Marian Olson

snapped line—

the salmon’s full length

in the air

Francine Porad