Brooks Books Haiku

Haiku Deck Playing Cards

by Randy Brooks

Randy Brooks. Haiku Deck Playing Cards

Deck of Playing Cards • 2026
54 cards • $15.00 US

Brooks Books is pleased to celebrate the publication of HAIKU DECK featuring 52 haiku and senryu selected for each card in a deck of playing cards.

Haiku Deck features haiku and senryu by Randy Brooks shuffled and sorted into four seasons for Hearts that Spring, Clubs all Summer long, Diamonds forever Fall, and Winter in the Spades.

Each set of four kings, queens, sevens, twos, etc. correspond to universal human experiences and perspectives related to the folklore or common intuitive associations with that symbol.

May you enjoy playing card games and reading haiku along the way. Cheers! We hope you always find love and hope and meaning in haiku cards.

~ Randy Brooks

This is a collection of 54 haiku (52 cards for the traditional deck and 2 jokers). Each suit includes thirteen haiku or senryu. Each set of four kings, queens, sevens, twos, etc. correspond to universal human experiences. Here are my intuitive guides or prompts for selections of haiku for each card.
 

Ace –  solitary, independent, loner, spiritual, one of a kind, individual, meditation

King – father, leader, ruler

Queen – mother, nurturer, grower

Jack – prince, fool, player, sport

Ten – fulfillment, new perspective, completion

Nine – spiritual awakening, universal love

Eight – victory, prosperity, wealth, enough

Seven – lucky, wholeness, contentedness

Six – watch your back, protection, shelter

Five – golden rings, recognition, treasure

Four – balancing, organizing, nature exploration

Three – friends, games, children, play

Two – couples, mating, romance, lovers

ORDER directly from Brooks Books

$15.00 plus $5.00 postage from:

Brooks Books
6 Madera Court
Taylorville, IL 62568

Your cost for HAIKU DECK PLAYING CARDS is $15.00 plus $5.00 for shipping and handling.

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PDF Edition Orders:

To save on shipping costs, Brooks Books is pleased to offer a PDF edition of HAIKU DECK.

Note that print copies of HAIKU DECK are not available to international addresses. Therefore, International customers should order the PDF edition.

ORDER the PDF edition from Brooks Books

$15.00

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Playing HAIKU DECK crazy eights:

A fun way to introduce haiku to friends or students is to play a game of crazy eights with these haiku cards.

When each person plays their next card, they read the haiku out loud until the game is over.

Let Brooks Books know if you come up with other ways to play with HAIKU DECK cards.

~ Randy & Shirley Brooks

Hearts – Spring

Clubs – Summer

Diamonds – Autumn

Spades – Winter

HAIKU DECK crazy eights:

A fun way to introduce haiku to friends or students is to play a game of crazy eights with these haiku cards.

When each person plays their next card, they read the haiku out loud until the game is over.

This is a simple impromptu haiku poetry reading with multiple voices and random order.

The matching haiku rule: one variation you can try is that you cannot change suits by matching card numbers. You can only change suits by matching the haiku or with crazy eights. (Haiku from the same numbers possibly already match to a certain extent, but players can make a case for other haiku mataches as well.)

HAIKU DECK poker stories:

Play poker with a story-telling twist.

As you draw your hand, make bids, draw new cards and up the ante, you are not only getting the best poker hand possible. You are also shaping an impromptu story told by the order of playing (and read out loud) the haiku in your hand. You can enhance the details from the haiku with your own imagined narrative and connections between haiku.

The player with the best poker story gets to remove one card from opponents' hand. Can the best haiku story player's hand NOW beat the other poker hands?

Haiku Deck hearts?

In HAIKU DECK hearts the twos can take aces (because they are lovers). Twos cannot take any other cards other than aces (unless they are trump).

When taking an ace with a two of the same suit or as trump, you explain why the haiku from the two connects or addresses the situation of the ace's haiku.

Everything else is the same as usual in hearts.

We're still working out the guidelines and variations for game.

Haiku Deck Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following journals in which these poems appeared:

Asahi Haikuist Network • Bamboo Hut • Blithe Spirit • Bottle Rockets • Chrysanthemum • Circle of Salt • Daily Haiga • Enchanted Garden • Failed Haiku • Fireflies’ Light • Folk Ku • Dadakuku • Five Fleas • Geppo • Ginkgo Gold: Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 2025 • Haiku Commentary • The Haiku Shack • Hedgerow • Kabita Live • Kokako • LEAF: Journal of the Daily Haiku • Lothlorien Poetry Journal • The Midwest Haiku Traveling Rock Garden • Modern Haiku • Presence • The Russell Streur Nature Poetry Anthology 2025 • Seashores • Shadow Pond Journal • Telling the Bees: The Red Moon Haiku Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2024 • Time Haiku • Tinywords • Triya • Wales Haiku Journal • Water Between Mountain Stones, Two Autumns Press, 2025 • The Zen Space

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Dr. Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where he teaches courses on haiku and Japanese poetics. He and his wife, Shirley Brooks, are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent books include:

Walking the Fence: Selected Tanka

and

The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku: A Reader Response Approach.