Books Recently Received
Reviews of the following books will appear in forthcoming issues of contemporary haibun online.
Haibun: A Writer’s Guide
By Roberta Beary, Lew Watts, and Rich Youmans
Published by Ad Hoc Fiction, United Kingdom
2023, paperback, 120 pages
ISBN: 978-1-915247-40-7
$16.99 USD/ £13.99 GBP
Available through the Ad Hoc Bookstore and Amazon
From the publisher: Haibun has, over the past decades, been adopted and adapted by writers worldwide. Yet, despite its dynamic growth, much about the form remains misunderstood. In Haibun: A Writer’s Guide, three experienced editors and writers explore what goes into a good haibun and how its components (title, prose, haiku) connect to spark new insights and epiphanies. The authors also trace the history of English-language haibun, demonstrate the ways in which a haibun can resonate with readers, illustrate how writers are pushing the boundaries of the form without losing its essence, and offer 35 prompts and exercises for writing haiku and haibun.
Roberta Beary’s poetry and fiction are widely published and anthologized, and in 2022 their prose poem was awarded first prize in the Bridport Prize for Poetry. They are the longtime haibun editor for Modern Haiku. Lew Watts is the author of Tick-Tock, a haibun collection that received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards, and the forthcoming Eira. He is the haibun co-editor of frogpond. Rich Youmans currently serves as editor in chief of contemporary haibun online and its related print anthology, contemporary haibun.
Haibun Chowder: A Collection
By Bryan D. Cook
Independently published by B.D.C.Ottawa Consulting, Canada
First Edition: April 2023, paperback, 112 pages
ISBN: 979-8-847741-83-5
$15.00 CAD
Available from the author as well as Amazon and other online booksellers
From the publisher: Haibun Chowder is a collection of 85 of Bryan D. Cook’s haibun, many of which have appeared in noted journals. the life-time memoir of a baby boomer—a one-time rebel in his sixties student clothes who became a respected science manager leading Canadian missions abroad—the book reflects a diversity of remarkable life events, some unexpected and others scary, most told with a twist of humor.
Bryan D. Cook is an alumnus of Sheffield and McGill universities and a retired director general of energy science and technology in Canada’s federal government. He has traveled extensively, from his youth in England, Eypt, Ireland, and France to Canada and many other countries for his job and family holidays. In 2019, he won the Genjuan International Haibun Contest.
Meteor Hound
By Doris Jean Lynch
Independently published
2023, paperback/e-book, 68 pages
ISBN: 978-0-998543-31-4
$14.00 USD paperback/ $2.99 USD e-book
Available through Amazon
From the publisher: These haibun explore our world. Travel, its learning and questing, not its travails forge a recurrent theme. Some are set in Alaska where the author lived with her family for seven years. Most share the author’s deep connection to the natural world even as our damaged climate threatens to destroy what we hold most valuable.
Doris Jean Lynch has won three Indiana Arts Commission Fellowships, as well as awards from the Genjuan International Haibun Contest, Haiku Society of America, the Alaska State Council on the Arts, the Chester H. Jones Foundation, Bay Area Poets Coalition, and UC Berkeley. Her poetry chapbook Praising Invisible Birds was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008.