Roberta Beary
… and Other Life Disasters
The famous writer steps up to the podium feels his blue tweed pocket for his spectacles forgetting that his current wife mandated a switch to contacts now he drifts backward in time and meets old school chums by the river where he played as a boy under mother’s watchful gaze though she’s dead these 30 years a good thing because when it comes right down to it his mother had no use for contacts and as he turns the page he sees words he cannot fathom nor the reason he has been placed under hot lights in a packed auditorium but is grateful when a somewhat familiar figure stops blowing kisses as he pats his blue tweed pocket for the rosary his mother promised would keep him forever safe from mishaps
About the Author
Roberta Beary, haibun editor of Modern Haiku, identifies as gender fluid and divides their time between the USA and Ireland. Winner of the Bridport Poetry Prize, they co-authored, with Lew Watts and Rich Youmans, Haibun: A Writer’s Guide (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023). Recent books include their award-winning haiku collection Carousel (Snapshot Press, 2024) and Crazy Bitches: Selected Haibun, (MacQ, 2025).
The flow feels like one continuous breath, and those phrases land like quiet stepping stones in the current—just enough to hold onto as everything else drifts.
I’d love to know if this is a form you’ve been exploring for some time, or something newly unfolding in your haibun.
hi beverly, many 🙏thanks.
*…and other life disasters* was a w-i-p for several years. the epiphany came (as they do for me) as if out of nowhere but was actually hiding in plain sight. sometimes i have to wait for the haibun to happen.
i thank cho co-editor peter newton for his patience!