PACE Global Haiku • Fall 2008
Dr. Randy Brooks

JERRY DIES AFTER EATING
112 PENNIES ON A DARE

a collection of haiku
by
Mark Beanblossom

There is a certain sense of the traditional in haiku. Traditional haiku focus very much on nature and our place in it, and tend to be very focused on the sensations of a moment in nature. I choose not to follow this route. I think there are so many wonderful, small moments that are more social in nature, and are simply about people interacting with people, instead of great mother nature. I think that these social moments are more powerful to us as people, as our entire days are composed of these small situations. Most of us interact with each other more than we interact with nature, and I think that traditional haiku almost ignores these interactions in favor of a more solitude-based philosophy, which really doesn’t try to help us figure out how we act as people. Isn’t that really what poetry should be doing?

Reader's Introduction:

As I read through Mark’s collection, I decided that one haiku stuck out to me as the most representative of his style:

car in the shop
bicycle built for two
for one

This haiku is great—it sets the scene in the first line, starts an image in the second line, and then finishes by twisting that image in an amusing way. But what I love most about this haiku is how great it sounds read aloud. The pause between “for two” in the second line and “for one” in the third line is integral to the proper delivery of this haiku. Mark is excellent at bringing new life to haiku with his readings, and I can clearly hear in my head how he would read this one! —Melanie McLay

young boy
carrying his drunk father
once again

fraternity brothers
drinking beer and watching
Love Story

midnight run
an owl hoots as I chase
a burglar

fall break—
my nights at home
without you

your driveway
not as long
as I remember it

car in the shop
bicycle built for two
for one

curtain calls
you grab my hand
extra tightly

the water
in my lava lamp
tastes terrible

Thanksgiving
with her hippie parents
tofurkey

waking up the morning after
you have taken
my pillow

passing in the hallway
we pretend
we’ve never kissed

collapsed gazebo—
a single screw
in my hand