old song: The Red Moon Anthology 2017 ed. by Jim Kacian, et al. (2018)

The Red Moon Anthology of English-language haiku 2017.

Poetry Review: old song is the 2017 installment of this annual, quality anthology by Red Moon Press, that's been published since 1996. Every year a few thousand haiku nominated from around the world are winnowed down and selected for inclusion in this collection. Alert: few if any are of the traditional 5/7/5 syllable-counting exercise we learned in grade school. What is most striking is the wide diversity contained in these pages. Haiku from the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Canada, Australia, China, Sweden, Ireland, Japan, India, Ukraine, Montenegro, Slovenia, Turkey, and the U.S. are included in just the first 50 pages. Even more diverse is the subject matter within, the perspectives are endless. These are genuine efforts to capture some aspect of life and the world in three lines or less. Some of the haiku are light,

   yoga class
   my corpse pose
   draws a fly

some are personal,

   soft rain ...
   the way the oncologist
   says "we"

there's the political,

   syrian truce
   first snow falling on
   a roofless town

and some seek to capture some eternal truth in a moment,

   priest's handshake
   leaves that still cling
   to the tree

With the best haiku various interpretations are equally possible. I'm not a member of the haiku community, but somewhere, sometime ago, thanks to Basho, Peter Pauper Press, and R.H. Blyth I became seriously enamored of the form as a way to capture or illuminate a moment. It's very individual, private, intimate, mine. Haiku is not for everyone, but for those who find it and reach some level of understanding it can become a comforting part of life. Other than the wholly conventional forms, whatever Platonic ideal one has of haiku can be found here with some guaranteed to resonate. My personal vision of the form is very restricted, but even I found work by like-minded people inside. By my, or perhaps your, definition not all of pieces in old song are haiku. Some are simply abbreviated poems. But that's just fine; I like short poems. In addition to this treasury (to be treasured) of haiku, there are a number of "linked forms" in which the haiku is incorporated into a short narrative to striking effect. There's also scholarly, thoughtful and erudite essays on the form that simultaneously proclaim: (1) this is an adult pastime, not child's play; and (2) there's a whole world of haiku out there for the solitary watcher scribbling short poems in a pocket notebook (or on your phone) while being in and of the world. Even if the essays may seem a bit too much, they will still welcome you into a dimension where haiku writing is a part of life. When one begins to see the world through a haiku prism, that vision becomes a third eye, therapy, or a new voice for song. For anyone who writes, loves, or is curious about haiku, short poems, moments of enlightenment or wry chuckles, old song is a perfect place to begin. All the previously published editions are still available from Red Moon Press (they can be addicting).  [4★]