We learned to write haiku, or at least a hybrid English version of it, in elementary school. Do you remember? Every teacher I had explained that haiku was a 3-line nature poem, consisting of 5-7-5 syllables, of Japanese origin. I remember writing a LOT of it. It was easy. And while the instructions we got for writing this short poetry form were not incorrect, they were incomplete and didn’t make any concessions for differences between the English and Japanese languages.

I started writing haiku again when I returned from a Bearing Witness retreat to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. It was then, in 1996, that I started to explore the differences between haiku in Japanese and that in English, and I began experimenting a bit with the traditional form.

Although I’ve had single poems published in several small haiku journals, both here in the US and in both Japan and Romania, I decided I really wanted to put everything together in one place.

The official publication date for Empty Graves: Bearing Witness Through Haiku is May 28, 2025, the 48th anniversary of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky. I’ve included both traditional and non-traditional haiku in this first of three planned volumes, covering nature, war, tragedy, and societal ills.

This is the first of three planned volumes. Although I haven’t outlined it all yet, I am hoping to focus on nature in the second volume and society and culture in the third.

Look for purchasing information here and on social media!