Editor Interview: Mayfly Haiku Magazine

Haiku in English

Frogpond, a journal for members of the Haiku Society of America
Moden Haiku
Acorn
Juxtapositions

Francine Banwarth
Bill Cooper
Peggy Lyles
Caroline Gourlay
Alexis Rotella
Julie Schwerin
Ben Gaa
Aubrie Cox
Diane Tomczak
Carl Mayfield
Raymond Roseliep
Bill Pauly

We feature only one or two haiku per page to give each haiku room to breathe . . . to give the reader time to pause and read and fully imagine each haiku before moving on to the next poem. Each cover is an original commissioned painting by Jessica Brooks Sebok featuring a haiku from the previous issue. We are very selective, publishing only 24-26 haiku per issue after a competitive reading of all submissions. We pay $20 credit per haiku (to be used at Brooks Books for subscriptions, back issues, or other publications). We select about 50 "maybes" and place them our for reading and re-reading over 4-6 weeks. Only haiku that continue to resonate after multiple readings are published.

Read contemporary English-language haiku journals and books. Visit the Haiku Society of America web site and the Haiku Foundation web site to learn more about the contemporary literary art of haiku in English. See the Modern Haiku web site. Haiku is an open-ended, leaping poetry. The key form of haiku is the pregnant pause in a haiku. The Japanese call this a haiku cut. That silence somewhere not quite in the middle of a haiku is the chief characteristic of this genre. Haiku form is something you hear, an imaginative space the writer invites the reader to enter. If you think haiku is a closed form of poetry written in 5-7-5 syllables, you need to read more about haiku written and published over the last 100 years.

Five original haiku with your name and address. No titles. Very sparse punctuation. Let images spark the reader's imagination into emotional responses.

They do not understand the haiku tradition. Here is our quick overview of haiku as a genre:
We reject the view of haiku as a closed poetic form consisting of five-seven-five syllables. Haiku come in a wide variety of forms including one line, visual, three line, two line, four line, free-form and syllabic form. The essential element of form in English-language haiku is that each haiku is a short one-breath poem that usually contains a juxtaposition of images. Each haiku usually has a break—a contemplative pause—which makes it a deliberately incomplete literary artifact, prompting the reader to make a leap of imagination in order to complete the moment begun by the poet.
The best haiku capture human perception—moments of being alive conveyed through sensory images. They do not explain nor describe nor provide philosophical or political commentary. Haiku are gifts of the here and now, deliberately incomplete so that the reader can enter into the haiku moment to open the gift and experience the feelings and insights of that moment for his or her self.
A haiku is not a word puzzle nor a tricky twist of linguistic play. A haiku is an invitation to see, imagine, contemplate, and most of all to feel alive!

We like to get to know authors through their submitted work. No cover letter needed.

We read all submissions in a competitive contest-style reading. One reading period is November 15 - December 15. The other competetive reading period is May 15 - June 15. From this competitive reading, we select "maybes" and leave them out for repeated reading for several weeks. Then we have a final competitive selection of just 20-16 new haiku for the issue. The haiku that are selected have to continue to resonate with meaning and feeling beyond the first readings.

All submissions have at least 2 readers, with guests often participating in the final selections from our short list of "maybes". Sometimes we have up to 20-30 readers responding to our top finalists.

In addition to editing Mayfly magazine, we also publish haiku and tanka books through Brooks Books press. We are fulfilling orders and shipping books every other day, so all of the post office workers know us. We also are very active in the broader haiku community, helping with related web sites and publications.

We rarely edit haiku accepted for publication. However, we do teach courses on writing haiku at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. We have also hosted many workshops and presentations for writers groups, schools and organizations.

Yes, we nominate work for Touchstone Haiku awards and the Haiku Society of America book awards.