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Frogpond – Spring/Summer 2007

Volume 30 Number 2

Spring/Summer 2007

annual

Colin McLean

For most of us in the U.S., “haiku” conjures memories of fourth grade teachers, 5-7-5 syllable counts, and the camaraderie of a bake sale. But, if you read Frogpond: The Journal of the Haiku Society of America, you’d be wrong except for the camaraderie.

For most of us in the U.S., “haiku” conjures memories of fourth grade teachers, 5-7-5 syllable counts, and the camaraderie of a bake sale. But, if you read Frogpond: The Journal of the Haiku Society of America, you’d be wrong except for the camaraderie.

The publication provides longer works, such as the haibun, and well-developed essays. There is a notable lyrical-haiku essay by Fay Aoyagi, titled “Dissection of the Haiku Tradition: Wind.” The essay explores the wind through memoir, famous haikus, and even song lyrics. Aoyagi writes: “When the rain front moves north, the Meteorological Agency announces the official end of the rainy season. The sky becomes bright. Cicadas start singing.” This is followed by Sojo Hino’s haiku:

white south wind –
she forgets to apply makeup
behind her ears

There is a short essay by Dietmar Tauchner who writes about the international haiku scene, illustrating the differences of American and Japanese haiku, alongside the contemporary German haiku scene.

I prefer the friendly atmosphere of Frogpond to so many other more cutthroat journals, and the fact that a good haiku is rarer than a wild orchid. In this, Frogpond is prescient. The opening haiku by Yasuhiko Shigemoto is perhaps the best and the review deserves to end on its enigmatic note:

From the A-bombed tree
seeds start to fall
ththis year also

[www.hsa-haiku.org/frogpond.htm]

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