Page last updated: May 16, 2023
All pages copyright © 2023 by Pinyon Publishing
SOFT SERVE
Haiku Remains by Gary Hotham
GARY HOTHAM grew up in northern Maine, which is probably why there is a lot of snow & cold in his haiku. He met Karen when they attended the University of Maine. She was that southern girl from Pennsylvania! After their marriage in 1973 they lived in Japan while Gary was in the Air Force. They have been residents of Maryland since 1975 but have had some pleasant years, along with their daughter, living and working in Germany and England.
Gary recently was named the 2022-2023 Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives at California State University Sacramento. He started writing and publishing haiku in 1966 and since then his haiku have appeared in many journals and anthologies. In 1976 his first chapbook collection appeared, and over 20 chapbooks and larger collections of haiku have appeared. He is currently serving as the first VP of the Haiku Society of America.
Handmade Limited Edition, 100 numbered copies
4.625”x6.25”, 61 pages, 80-lb Text Paper
Batik Ocean Blue and Bugra Decorative Papers
ALSO BY GARY HOTHAM:
Spilled Milk (2010) Haiku Destinies, (5.25"x8" paperback, 144 pages, ISBN: 978-0-9821561-5-5, $15.00).
Stone’s Throw (2016) Promises of Mere Words, (5.25"x8" paperback, 112 pages, ISBN: 978-1-936671-33-5, $16.00).
The ocean and the breath, the small and the immensity fit into each other. Time and space are brought into focus and then destroyed. Fireflies, as star-muses, dance through this internal-universal flux.
Some haiku make us stop and feel the lightness of laughter. Some haiku warm us, and we too let go. Strung alongside the quieting haiku are also those with empowering energy like the ocean taking on the storm.
Rain and rocks. The depth of crossing paths. The immensity of Grand Canyon dawn in the little cup in my hand. In what ways is a half an orange a day’s plans? The wind is a new experience for this little petal. Do the stars tumble or do we, or do we both?
As in “most nights / the part of the moon we take / for granted,” these poems rich in experience, suggest the immense range of internal and external (or non-dual) experiences available; each night and day. The silences worth hearing. Clouds give us names and these haiku give us Possibility.
The senses penetrating each other. Like silence or sound and space. We walk over (ancient) time. The meadow is saturated with sound, yet still there is a way to create space for our bodies.
“passing through / the brook on the way to / sea level” We could be passing through. The water could be passing through. So maybe we are the water.
What is lost and not lost. A story built from juxtapositions within and among haiku. We can’t read “lost / in the pond / the splash” without seeing the grandson and the rocks, who by the end of the story we’ve grown to love and be lightened by.
Page last updated: May 16, 2023
All pages copyright © 2023 by Pinyon Publishing