The Haiku Foundation

There is now an official Haiku Foundation, with an impressive website including Charles Trumbull's extensive Haiku Bibliography. Here's the press release from Jim Kacian:

Dear Friends:

The Haiku Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to archive the accomplishments of the first century of haiku in English and to create greater opportunities for its second, was chartered in the state of Virginia, USA, on 6 January 2009. It is a volunteer organization primarily designed to create and implement projects centered around haiku. Most haiku organizations have privileged the poet and her needs: education, publication, socialization. The Haiku Foundation instead seeks to foster the growth of haiku itself. This is where poets come when they want to give back.

We are pleased to announce the public unveiling of our website. We hope you will visit it often and with pleasure. Please tell us how it serves you, and how it might serve you in the future. And most of all, we welcome your participation. Please join us to help us realize our goals.

Jim Kacian
The Haiku Foundation

If you're looking for an interesting article to read, check out Mary Gamble's 2001 essay comparing and contrasting the haiku of Issa and Gary Hotham.

this & that

I have to get up in about six and a half hours to go to work, so this is gonna be a quick post. Just a few mentions:

The new issue of bear creek haiku is out, full of great poems as always. A couple of gems by Mark Arvid White and Christopher E. Ellington.

There's a new horror anthology opening for submissions August 1st. Catastrophia will be a collection of catastrophe/disaster stories, 2000-6000 words, to be published summer of 2010. It is a paying market, but the guidelines don't specify how much.

Twisted Tongue is also open to submissions, this time for its Christmas-themed winter issue. I believe non-themed submissions will still be accepted, but check the guidelines for details.

Barnes & Noble is having a clearance sale, online and in stores. Find all the clearance books here, for 50-80% off. The sale ends August 3rd.

Last thing to mention... I just finished two good but very different books: Cold in the Light by Charles Gramlich, and Dusk Lingers, a collection of haiku by Issa, translated by Dennis Maloney. Both were superb books. Cold in the Light is available at any large bookstore; Dusk Lingers is available from Modern Proposal Chapbooks (an imprint of Lilliput Review). I hope to post reviews of both books some time soon.