Guest Poet: George Swede
We take great pleasure in presenting George Swede of Toronto as our guest poet in this issue. Currently serving as editor of Frogpond,The Journal of the Haiku Society of America, he is enjoying the fruits of a long and distinguished career in English-language haiku as a poet, editor, essayist, and co-founder of Haiku Canada. Anyone who has met George will have been struck by his easygoing demeanor and gentle but insightful humor. We look forward to having him as our literal guest at Tai Pan whenever his frequent travels on behalf of haiku bring him to our neighborhood.
While each of us had notable haiku-related events to celebrate in the course of the last six months, this period has been preeminently the prime time of Yu Chang. Red Moon Press has published his first haiku collection, Seeds. The early word on it is all good and, of course, we recommend that you order a copy (redmoonpress.com). Yu was also named “Poet-of-the-Year” by readers of The Heron’s Nest in recognition of his work appearing in that journal over the course of 2009.
With the next issue we will complete our first ten years of publication. We are currently discussing how to mark this occasion. If your subscription concludes with this issue, we urge you to renew for at least one more Upstate Dim Sum. Stay tuned!
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Sample Poems
last night’s dreams
feet drag through
the fallen leaves
George Swede
so much unclear—
snow melting
from a locked bike
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wintering
their different ways
birch and pine
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voices coming
from the next apartment
used to be us
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cracked boulder
an acorn
settles in
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Upstate Dim Sum 