Tell us a bit about yourself and your chapbook Deflection (Accents Publishing 2015).
I created Deflection in the wake of my mother’s death in 2013 after caring for her for five years. Shortly after my mother died, my nephew died. It was a hard year. Working on Deflection was a way of dealing with my grief. I also hoped the collection would resonate with readers, especially those who find it hard to voice their own sense of loss. I believe in the power of haiku and enjoy doing haiku and haibun workshops and readings both in the States and abroad. My haiku collection, The Unworn Necklace, has just gone into its 4th printing and was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams’ award. I’ve also edited several haiku anthologies.
Deflection relies heavily on the Japanese forms haiku, senryu, and haibun. How did you come to writing in these forms?
Haibun is the form that speaks to me. I love the way it combines the freedom of flash fiction with the discipline of haiku. Some poets distinguish between haiku (poems with a season word) and senryu (poems about human nature). I like both forms and combine them whenever possible. I think of myself as a hybrid poet. In the 1990s I lived in Tokyo for five years and discovered the beauty of small things, including haiku. When I returned to the States, I joined Towpath, haiku poets of the Chesapeake Bay. We’ve been meeting for 20 years.
In the title poem the speaker discusses the death of her mother. The opening lines
mother gone
my urgent need
for a new coat
use senryu to capture the way we avoid thinking about the loss of a parent. What did this form offer that other forms and styles did not or could not?
Senryu are not easy to write well. The form’s discipline forces me to be very careful in choosing both words and images. This was certainly true when I was writing the title poem, which is a haiku sequence. I wanted to convey the feeling of loss in a way that expresses deep sentiment not shallow sentimentality. In the title poem, grieving takes on different guises, all of which show that it is a natural process.
Do you feel any anxiety to look for fresh interpretations of such venerated forms, and if so, do you ever feel as if you would/should jeopardize the form for the content, or vice versa?
I would describe myself as a haibun rebel. Traditional haibun don’t interest me very much─I see a lot of them as haibun editor for Modern Haiku. Haibun are much more than prose poems with a haiku tacked on at the end. I don’t feel any anxiety about looking for fresh interpretations. They come naturally to me. I’m a risk-taker in my writing.
Do you have any advice for those seeking to write in these forms?
Reading the print journal Modern Haiku is a good way to see the best of today’s writing. The Norton Anthology, Haiku in English, is a good guide for those who want to jump into the haiku world or just get their feet wet. I also want to give a tip of the hat to Rattle, Issue #47, which features Japanese forms.
What inspires you to write?
In large part, I want to connect with others, particularly the disenfranchised, to let them know they are not alone.
Are you currently working on any new projects we can look forward to reading?
As a self-described hybrid poet, I do like to mix things up. I am working on a collection of my photo-ku, short poems with photographic images. You can see examples of my photo-ku on twitter @shortpoemz. I’m also working on a chapbook which pairs my haiku and haibun with my brother Kevin Beary’s artwork. He’s an amazing artist as you can see by the cover of Deflection!
