Upstate Dim Sum 2001/II

Upstate Dim Sum - A Biannual Anthology of Haiku and Senryu

Guest Poet: Jim Kacian

Since publishing our first Upstate Dim Sum last spring, the Route 9 Haiku Group has continued to meet once a month at the Tai Pan restaurant in Halfmoon, New York for long, satisfying sessions of haiku and dim sum. We have also had the privelege and pleasure, during this period, of sharing meals with Tom Clausen and Ion and Mihaela Codrescu.

Although we call ourselves the Route 9 Haiku Group, we feel it's important for us to acknowledge that a significant portion of the work in Upstate Dim Sum is senryu, rather than haiku. We find that we have a taste for senryu-flavored haiku and for senryu with a haiku tone.

The response to our spring 2001 issue was so encouraging! Equal parts of praise for the poems and for the group process. As a sample, the following from Christopher Herold: "Not only do I love this book from cover to cover, I am delighted with what you are doing. A small group, say three to five poets, meeting on a monthly basis, in a casual way, to discuss work on haiku is (I hope) the wave of the future."

The second issue of Upstate Dim Sum features the work of guest poet Jim Kacian. Jim needs no introduction to most readers of English-language haiku. An extremely short version of his resume would include: co-founder of the World Haiku Association, publisher and editor-in-chief of Red Moon Press and editor of the Haiku Society of America's journal, Frogpond.

for my birthday

another trip

around the sun

Jim Kacian

John Stevenson

Sample poems from this issue

clear morning

the deer lifts one hoof

then another

lighthouse -

she promises

to keep in touch

drama class

a sparrow

flies into the room