Guest Poet: Roberta Beary
Roberta Beary has been a noted haiku and senryu poet for many years, reaching new levels of prominence in 2008 when her collection The Unworn Necklace was named a finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award presented by the Poetry Society of America and was awarded a Mildred Kanterman Memorial Award by the Haiku Society of America. Her work is widely appreciated for its wit and psychological depth. We are pleased to be able to present her as our guest poet for autumn 2009.
Our half year, since the last edition of Upstate Dim Sum, has been replete with significant haiku and other events. I had the honor, once again, of judging the English-language sections of the students’ haiku contest sponsored by the Japanese Mission to the United Nations. I also enjoyed attending the tenth Haiku North America Conference in Ottawa. Tom gave a reading at Cornell in April, sharing the spotlight with Frank Robinson, a haiku poet and director of Cornell’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum
Hilary continues her musical work near and far. April 2009 saw the premiere of “High Rock Spring” for the nearby Saratoga Springs Youth Orchestra, while her recent oboe concerto, “Shakkei”, was performed in San Francisco in May and Bangkok in July. “Shakkei” is a term used to describe ‘borrowed scenery’ in Japanese landscape gardening. (For those readers interested in hearing the ‘slow and spacious’ first movement, it is available on CD and on ClassicsOnline.)
My new collection of haiku and related work, Live Again is just published, by Red Moon Press, as we complete our autumn issue. And we are excited to announce the prospective publication of a collection—the first—by Yu Chang; an event long anticipated by English-language haiku readers. This as yet untitled volume is under consideration by Red Moon press. We’ll keep you posted.
js
Sample Poems
single’s dance
the drumbeat
in my chest
Roberta Beary
songs of the thirties
seeing dad’s fingers
on the keys
ht
choosing his words
the bricklayer
proposes
js
new day
bringing water
to my face
tc
friday afternoon
l’ve found
my rabbit hole
yc
Upstate Dim Sum 