HCshohyôran

A Wild Blue Sky by Ben Gaa Octopus Hearts Press, 2025 ISBN: 979-8-218-79833-8  $12US review by Sandra Stephenson This seventh full collection by Ben Gaa, of the podcast series,  Haiku Talk , is printed large. It is a small book that feels intimate like a Bible. Between its size, poems, and the sundog on the cover, A Wild Blue Sky is full of delight, and full of subtle echoes easy to miss on first reading:      snow on snow      chilli reheats There’s a freshness in “budding limbs/ of pollywogs” or      moonrise      the white tops      of toadstools and an understated, innocent incredulity in      as if it never happened           and yet                this old wedding ring There’s a slow unfolding through “bottleneck blues”, gradual and gradated like the hike up the hill, revealing “first one ...

Wondrous Instruction and Advice from Global Poets: How to Write and Publish Moving Poems and Books and Publicize Like a Pro by Charlotte Digregorio (Artful Communicators Press, 2025) Published by  Artful Communicators Press, 2025 (5th printing) ISBN : 978-0-9912139-2-4 Order from eBay, or by mail , 352 pages $34.20 U.S. Reviewed by Pearl Pirie Charlotte Digregorio is a Haiku Canada members.  You probably know her from her busy blog, Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog  where she has posted poems of haiku and tanka by many people worldwide for 16 years. She has also been a teacher for decades. She has marketed and/or published 55 titles on all manner of topics, including Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All in 2014 and Checkout Time is Soon: More Death Awareness Haiku with Robert Epstein in 2018. Unlike the two previously mentioned, Wondrous Instruction isn't listed at Amazon. This she sells through eBay. It is very heavily blurbed by a who's who of haiku. Dig...

Mayfly , issue 77, summer 2024 Published by Brooks Books, Illinois one-year subscription (2 issues) $15US review by Sandra Stephenson I have not seen the 2025 issues of this little gem of a publication, have only just become aware of Mayfly by way of a copy a year old.  It's charming, and includes one exquisite haiku from each contributor.  Probably my favorite,      horse-drawn      those scribbled lines      through the buttercups is from Ireland.  One Canadian haikuist is in there too.  Antoinette Cheung should be recruited for Haiku Canada if she's not already a member.  Her poem:      golden hour      mom and I pick summer      off the laundry line It's true, most of the poets are American, like Lesley Anne Swanson, who wrote:      patisserie window . . .      nose prints vote      for eclairs I really like how the editor o...

  HCSHR 7:3   —   The Ten Hands of a Fuchka Seller: haiku and senryū by Daipayan Nair. (Kolkata: Penprints, 2024). ISBN: 978-81-974036-2-0 . 80 pp. Price: INR 300 | Softcover, ±$45 from amazon.ca; Ebook, ±$5 from play.google.com, Info: < nairdaipayan744@gmail.com > Review by Richa Sharma

  HCSHR 7:2   —   designated driver: a selection of haiku, senryu, and small poems by Stanford M. Forrester (wooden nickel press, windsor: 2023). 66 pages. 5” x 8”. Perfect softbound. ISBN: 978-1-7366037-8-9. $18.95US from www.bottlerocketspress.com Review by Jerome Berglund

  HCSHR 7:1   —   Faunistics by R.C. Thomas ( R.C. Thomas Things , Plymouth UK: 2024). 151 pages. 5” x 8”. Perfect softbound. ISBN: 978-1-3999-6873-7. $17 from amazon.ca.