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Poetry Pea presents a live poetry reading, haiku and haibun from a group of North American poets, from, shall we say, a younger generation of poets.
Read the show notes here.
Thanks to Alex for hosting of this episode and to our lovely poets:
Antoinette Cheung
Nicky Gutierrez
Carly Siegel Thorp
Ari Azimuth aka Brown Weasel
Ryland Li
Matt Snyder, one of Poetry Pea’s Renga masters
Yvette Nicole Kolodji
Edward Cody Huddleston
If you know them, do let them know how brilliantly they did.
Membership of Poetry Pea: If you could consider a membership or a donation, both done through Buy me a Coffee. Thank you.
Poet’s Bios
Antoinette Cheung immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong as a toddler, and calls Vancouver home. She stumbled across haiku through the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival’s Haiku Invitational and subsequently joined the Vancouver Haiku Group, where she has since enjoyed the generous support of its talented members. Through the HSA’s mentorship program, she has benefited from the insightful guidance of Nick Klacsanzky, Judson Evans, and David Grayson as her mentors. Antoinette stays inspired by the camaraderie of the haiku community. She continues to be drawn to this form through the possibilities for multiple readings within the space of so few words, the significance of each word in carrying the weight of the whole poem, and ultimately the potential for innovation against the façade of simplicity.
Nicky Gutierrez is a theopoet from Akron, OH. He has been published in several journals such as Modern Haiku and Kingfisher. Nicky runs the Ohio Haiku Study group and is a mentor in the HSA. He got into haiku during his undergraduate studies, as he wanted to start a writing habit. He also liked Japanese culture and philosophy. From there, he continued writing and submitting to journals; one of which was the Heron’s Nest. Although his work was not published, one of the editors invited him to the Ohio Haiku Study Group. At this group, he fell in love with the community and continued writing. He loves how haiku “capture’s a moment” and brings the poet to “see” reality as it is. It helps him see how God moves through nature and the ordinary life of the poet. Poets that have influenced Nicky, besides the four masters, are Fr. Raymond Roseliep, Santoka Taneda, and Julie Schwerin. He is also grateful to the haiku community who, like a village, has influenced him. Nicky has a MA in Theopoetics from Bethany Theological Seminary and is working on a Master’s in Theological Studies at Duke Divinity.
Carly Siegel Thorp. I live in Sterling, MA, just outside Worcester, and am originally from Cape Cod. I’ve been writing verse poetry on/off since high school and when the COVID shutdown happened, I started writing poetry again and “stumbled upon” haiku in the summer of 2020. I truly have no memory of how I found haiku, but I was immediately drawn into its simplicity and connections to nature. The outdoors is my favorite place to be and I’m a birder, so haiku was a natural form for me to begin writing. I’m also an avid reader, so I ordered all the books I could find on haiku, particularly those written by William J. Higginson, and began subscribing to several haiku journals.
What I love most about haiku and its poets is the passion we all have for its unique form and the natural world it represents. No other poetry form has such a strong connection to nature and focuses on those simple moments that many people take for granted. The poets who particularly influence my writing are Peggy Willis Lyles, Brad Bennet, Kristen Lindquist, Yu Chang, and Chad Lee Robinson. I’ve been published in The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Prune Juice, and a few of our overseas counterparts!
Daniel Robinson is a 32-year-old haiku poet based in Birmingham, Alabama. His interest in haiku began in 2014, when he realized that the brevity of these poems allowed him the space to contemplate and visualize the moment for himself. He continued to explore haiku, which led him to read contemporary journals and submit his own works to them. Daniel’s poetry focuses on the seasonal images and experiences common in the South-Eastern region of the United States. He themes his haiku around realism, Christian faith, and the connection that personal experiences have with the common and natural experiences all people share. Color, imagery, taste, sound, and texture are common aspects of his haiku as well. Daniel likes to read the poetry of haiku master Buson and happily reads from many different contemporary journals, but he is always happy to come across the haiku of poets like Paul Miller, Michele Root-Bernstein, and fellow Alabamian, Terri French. Daniel has been published in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, and cattails, and continues to explore other forms of haikai like tanka and senryu.
Ary Azimuth aka brown weasel. My name is Ary and I publish under the pen name brown weasel. I live in Los Angeles, California but was born in Southern Michigan and am a Midwesterner at heart. I dabbled in haiku and other short-form poetry in my early adulthood and picked it up again with renewed interest after reading Basho’s complete works. I am fascinated by its economy and precision of language. Haiku as a medium understands how deeply entwined us humans are with the heartbeat of the natural world. It is a reminder we too are a part of nature. I am deeply inspired by Masaoka Shiki and his incredible commitment to revitalizing and modernizing haiku. My first poetry collection dust & glitter, was self published with a dedication to Shiki.
Ryland Shengzhi Li (李晟之) is a poet and environmental lawyer living in Northern Virginia, USA. He got initiated into Japanese short form poetry through Towpath, a local haiku group in the National Capital Area. Poetry teaches him how to pay attention and to see the beauty and interdependence of all things. His favorite poets include Mary Oliver, Kahlil Gibran, and Jenny Ward Angyal, whose writings are beautiful, profound, and wise. In his free time, Ryland also enjoys being with loved ones, exploring America’s public lands, and capturing photos of exquisite and hidden things.
Matt Snyder came to haiku by happy accident, stumbling upon Basho’s work and becoming hooked on the idea of haiku as a way of experiencing the world. He loves the insight of little moments writ large. He also benefits hugely from participating in the global haiku community. His writing is influenced by poets such as Debbie Kolodji and J Zimmerman, as well as hearing and workshopping poems in small groups such as the DC Towpath group, Haiku Social Club, and online communities like Inkstone. He has been a renga master at Poetry Pea. His work has appeared in various publications including the Poetry Pea. He lives in North Carolina with his partner Rosemary and a few ducks.
Cody Huddleston: I live in rural Georgia and work in radio. My haiku journey began in 2011 after I pushed a book that was hanging like a loose tooth back into its place on a library shelf. The book was The Japanese Haiku by Kenneth Yasuda. I moved from Yasuda’s 5-7-5 rhyming theory of haiku composition to a modern style, influenced by countless poets, prominently Fay Aoyagi, Jim Kacian, and Carolyn Hall. I’m grateful that hundreds of my haiku have found homes in books, journals, magazines, newspapers, blogs, and contests, not to mention a museum, two gardens, a couple of signs in Washington D.C., and a multitude of tea bottles by Ito En. My debut haiku collection, Wildflowers in a Vase, is available now from Red Moon Press. You can find me on X/Twitter @echuddleston. When I’m not working or composing haiku, I’m usually trying new varieties of coffee, trying to create the world’s best bowl of ramen, playing video games with my friends, working out, or being chewed on by Chip, my miniature schnauzer, who is otherwise a very good boy.
Published Poems are in the show notes, their unpublished haiku will be in the next Poetry Pea Journal. What an honour for us!
If you know them, do let them know how brilliantly they did.
