Online Collections Published by Brooks Books

Brooks Books publishes free, online collections of haiku. These collections feature color photography and haiku, traditional sumi-e painting and contemporary graphic arts approaches to haiga. Publishing these collections as traditional print media books would be very expensive, so we are happy to publish them online and make them available to the haiku community as a free service for the love of haiku and the related haiga arts. See Randy's haiga created at the Midwest Haiku Retreat. We are happy to provide these online photography & traditional haiga web colleciton free of charge for haiku readers.

Sky In My Teacup

haiku & photographs by Anne LB Davidson


Anne LB Davidson. Sky In My Teacup
Brooks Books © 2008 Anne LB Davidson

This collection of haiku and photography comes from years of craft with the art of haiku and a lifelong interest in photography. With haunting photographs of New York City before 9-11, and beautiful nature scapes, this collection invites you to build your own connections around each haiku and to imaginatively enter the space of each photograph.

Avoiding temptations to illustrate haiku with photographs and refusing to reduce the haiku to commentary on the photoraphs, Anne LB Davidson invites you to find the sky in your teacup.

Narrative Photo Haiku

haiku and photographs by Nancy H. Wiley & Gretchen Batz


Gretchen Batz & Nancy Wiley. Narrative Photo Haiku Brooks Books © 2005 Gretchen Batz & Nancy Wiley

Originally presented as an exhibit of photography and haiku at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois in the fall of 2004, Brooks Books is pleased to publish this collection of narrative photo haiku. Each photo and haiku tells a minature story. Enjoy!

As you view our works online, please note that the haiku are embedded within the photo as a rollover. Move your cursor onto the photo and the haiku will appear.

Village time
she walks through spring
to fetch her mail

Seasons of Water

haiku by Nancy Wiley & photographs by Gretchen Batz


Gretchen Batz & Nancy Wiley. Seasons of Water
Brooks Books © 2002 Gretchen Batz & Nancy Wiley

This collection combines Gretchen Graft Batz' photography with Nancy Hatch Wiley's original haiku poems. It was first exhibited at Principia College, Elsah, Illinois, in the summer of 2000.

As you view our works online, please keep in mind that the photographs are not meant to represent the haiku moment exactly since the artists were not together when the photographs were taken and the poems were written. But each photograph does illustrate some aspect of its accompanying haiku.

As to the title of the exhibit, "Seasons of Water," it seemed like a natural theme since water takes many forms which change with each Midwestern season.

Late again
swerving to miss a gobbler
November rain

Long Walk Alone

haiku by Lee Gurga & photographs by Gretchen Batz


Gretchen Batz & Lee Gurga. Long Walk Alone
Brooks Books © 2001 Gretchen Batz & Lee Gurga This collaboration, which culminated in an exhibit for the April, 2000 Decatur Global Haiku Festival, involved a process of pouring over the poems in Lee's book, Fresh Scent, innumerable times. In much the same way one learns to sing a song by internalizing the melody, I learned his poems. I then identified possible subjects suggested by images in them. Later, however, I was delighted to discover some surprising linkages between poems and photos that seemed at first totally unrelated: i.e. the chickens crossing a footbridge which translated into a rural interstate haiku image.

the end of my lane—
I open the sagging gate
to autumn sunset

This online presentation includes works from the 2000 Decatur exhibit as well as works for which there was not enough space to include there. Many thanks to Randy and Shirley Brooks for inviting me to share these photographs with a global audience. And thanks to Cathy Sadowski for assisting with the online edition design and editing. Please join us for the Long Walk Alone. —from the introduction by Gretchen Batz

Open Window

haiku and photographs by Michael Dylan Welch


Michael Dylan Welch. Open Window
Brooks Books © 2000 Michael D. Welch

Open Window pairs poems with photographs using renku-like linking techniques, and in many cases you'll find a link from photograph to photograph as well. Rather than having the poem and photograph mirror each other too closely, I've mostly linked them together by colour, mood, time, or place, and sometimes by subject or season.

These photographs, mostly taken on the west coast of the United States and Canada, are half of a slide show created for my "Come to Your Senses" haiku workshop. I first presented these photographs and haiku at a Japanese arts festival hosted by Kazuaki Tanahashi at Green Gulch

Zen Center in Marin, California in July of 1998.

I believe both haiku and photography are a window to the amazing world around us. I invite you to open these windows. my collection, Open Window. —Michael Dylan Welch

after the quake
the weathervane
pointing to earth

With love, Zolo

haiga by Zolo


John J. Polozzolo. With love, Zolo
Randy Brooks, Editor. Introduction by Jeanne Emrich
Brooks Books © 2000 John J. Polozzolo

This is a collection of 17 haiga by Zolo who began reading and writing haiku about 30 years ago. John Polozzolo is one of a growing number of poets in North America today discovering the aesthetic appeal and creative potential of the Japanese art form known as haiga or haiku painting. Zolo, as he signs his paintings, brings to the form a decidedly contemporary dynamism even as he continues the painterly traditions of some of the earliest haiga masters of Japan.

"I live in the shining beauty of the Lakes Region of New Hampshire with my wife, Susan. I have a son, Mark. Painting, pottery, and poetry have been lifelong passions, and my love of the brush and raku brought me to haiga." --from the author

White
   light . . .
      mushrooms

The Long Way Home

haiku and photographs by Garry Gay


Gary Gay. The Long Way Home
Brooks Books © 1999 Garry Gay

My days unfold often like a treasure hunt. The prize is to convey to an unknown audience the deeper sense of oneself. Most of the feelings that quality haiku bring forth awaken an old emotion or bring a burst of instant enlightenment from a deep well of memories. Childhood, friendships, separations, first experiences, roads traveled in a life lived fully. The gift of haiku is to recall a special feeling.

The dream quality of painted words let the imagination drift to special moments we all have. The challenge photographically is to be visually suggestive and not undermine the beauty of a few carefully chosen words. Both the haiku and the photograph must let you enjoy the moment of crossing the threshold. Please cross over with me in my collection,The Long Way Home. —from the foreword by Garry Gay

Snow buried canoe;
whittling on the paddle
by cabin fire light

In Her Blue Eyes

haiku by Randy & Shirley Brooks


Randy & Shirley Brooks. In Her Blue Eyes: Jessica Poems
© 1998 Brooks Books

With each of our children, we have written and published a small chapbook of poems. Our first born, Alan, was chronicled in The Rosebud Bursts published in 1979, the year of his birth. The second, Arik, was the focus of our collection called Me Too! which was published in 1985, four years after he was born. Several years later, we were blessed with our third child, our daughter, Jessica, born on September 24, 1994. Her book includes pregnancy through toddlehood.

This book of poems is the third in our parenting series, and we are pleased to share this latest treasure in our family, In Her Blue Eyes: Jessica Poems, both online and in print. —from the foreword by Randy Brooks

no crumbs left,
the girl continues to reach . . .
carp's open mouth

WL Haiku

haiku by sixth graders, Warrensburg-Latham Middle School


Randy Brooks, Editor. WL Haiku Workshop Anthology © 1998 Brooks Books

This is a collection of haiku by sixth graders who participated in a Poet in the Schools Workshop entitled, "Contemporary American and Japanese Haiku: Reading and Writing Haiku" Warrensburg-Latham Middle School, 6th grade English classes, (Warrensburg, IL) November 17, 19, and 24, 1998.

The primary purpose of this workshop was to introduce students to a visual thinking approach to writing, based on images and associations from their own memories. —from the foreword by Randy Brooks

Dad collects eggs
beneath the clucking hen . . .
breeze blows shut the door

Jason Linton