Crossing the stream,
how confused the moon becomes
among the stones—

Biographical Background

Foster Jewell was an American haiku poet and painter in the early and mid-1900’s. He was born July 21,1893, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jewell married Rhoda de Long Jewell, a piano teacher and fellow haiku poet. They lived in El Rito, New Mexico, Venice, California.

They had a small publishing company there, called the Sangre de Cristo Press, named after a mountain range in New Mexico. He died in Illinois, in 1984.

Author's Books

Jewell, Foster.
Leaves in the Wind. Venice, CA: Sangre de Cristo Press, 1976.

Jewell, Foster & Rhoda Jewell.
Searching Today for Yesterday’s Tomorrow. Venice, CA: Sangre de Cristo Press, 1976.

This profile of haiku writer, Foster Jewell, was researched, written and created by Elizabeth Stiner. See her reader response essay on Jewell's haiku:

Foster Jewell's Haiku

Scroll through the entire profile, or jump to any section:

• biographical background
• reader response essay
• author awards
• bibliography
• additional web links & resource

Author Awards

American Haiku
           Award (8)

Modern Haiku
           Award-Eminent Mention (7)
           Honorable Mention (3)
           Special Mention (9)

Bonsai Award

Reader Response Essay

Foster Jewell wrote hundreds of haiku over the course of his life, in addition to sculpting and running his own publishing company. Jewell primarily wrote haiku—short verses dealing with nature and natural subjects, as opposed to senryu, which concern human subjects—in the traditional three line format. His haiku express an admiration and child-like wonder for the natural world.

The structure of his haiku is not strictly traditional. There is no consistent use of number of syllables, such as the traditional 5-7-5, in Jewell’s haiku. However, the lines of his haiku are generally between 4 and 8 syllables in length, with the second line being the longest line in the haiku. The first letter of the first line of the haiku is always capitalized, and is the only capitalized letter in the haiku.

Jewell likes to play with the alignment of his haiku. Sometimes he uses the traditional left alignment, but he uses center and right alignment, and indentations as well. The alignment chosen for a particular haiku seems to be matched to the moments the haiku includes.

The moments Jewell was interested in capturing do not generally concern anything relating to human relationships, except the relationship between humans and nature. He wrote about woodlands, wetlands, seasons, animals, insects, celestial bodies, and farms. Jewell’s haiku and senryu can be loosely grouped into three regional categories:

Southwestern

Northwestern

and Mid-western

Additional Web Links and Resources

The Haiku of Foster Jewell