One
of the major missions of The World Haiku Club is to "find" and help
new talent realise him/herself to his/her full potential. Using a wine jargon,
this could be called "En Primeur" in haiku. On the other hand, we also
enjoy at WHC, fine wines, especially wines of good vintage and vineyard. Hence,
this series, "Tasting Vintage Haiku", where excellent vintage haiku
from well-known vineyards may be sampled.
In this issue, we will taste ten vintage haiku written by Randy Brooks from his
"Chateau Millikin" of Decatur, Illinois, USA. World Haiku Review asked
Randy Brooks to present ten haiku poems written and selected by himself:
Vintage
Haiku by Randy Brooks
grandpa drags
his daybed
to the front porch . . .
mockingbird's songs |
empty farm
wagon
a cell phone
buzzing under the hay |
lock out . . .
workers burn the editorials
to warm their hands |
autumn rain .
. .
the last of the dust
brought to earth |
hands on the
rail . . .
the humpback whale
doesn't resurface |
the homestead
cedars . . .
our toy cars follow a dirt road
through fallen needles |
creek water
warm . . .
I swing the grapevine
up to my cousin |
missing in
action.
she dusts off his guitar,
returns it to the shelf |
funeral
procession . . .
snowflakes blowing
into the headlights |
two lines in
the water . . .
not a word between
father and son |
PROFILE:
Randy M. Brooks, Ph.D.
brooksbooks@q-com.com
rbrooks@mail.millikin.edu
Randy Brooks directs the writing
major at Millikin University, Decatur, Illinois, USA. He and his wife, Shirley
Brooks, have been co-editors and publishers of Brooks Books, (formerly High/Coo
Press) and currently edit Mayfly magazine. They have been dedicated to
publishing books, magazines and hypertext collections of haiku in English since
1976 when they founded High/Coo Press.
In April 2000, he and Dr. Lee
Gurga organized a gathering of haiku poets, editors and scholars at the Global
Haiku Festival hosted by Millikin University, the Sister Cities Program and the
Haiku Society of America.
Brooks has won many awards for his
haiku and haiku publishing including 1st Place in the prestigious Harold G.
Henderson Award in 1998 from the Haiku Society of America. A collection of his
selected haiku, School's Out, was
published in 1999 by Press Here (Foster City, California). School's Out
received 3rd Place in the national Merit Book Awards for the Best Haiku Books
published in 1999, an award sponsored by the Haiku Society of America.
Dr.
Brooks & Millikin University
Read
Dr. Brooks: "Teaching
Haiku in Higher Education:
An Immersion into the Living Tradition"
Brooks
Books Website

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