Category Archives: Published Poems

in the middle

17 Friday Jun 2022

Posted by in haibun, nature, Published Poems, senryu

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You can sit on a lawn or in a field, or forest or by a stream; almost anyplace
and just sit there sensing whatever. The longer you sit the better for settling
out the business of the mind and becoming open to the myriad senses of
sound, sight, smell and the way all manner of life is right there to discover…


page by page…
she knows on each one
where Waldo is


Frogpond v. XXIV no.3 2001

Laughing To Myself

16 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by in Book reviews, haiku, Laughing To Myself, Published Poems, senryu, Tom Clausen biographical info

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Laughing To Myself

A collection of haiku and senryu by Tom Clausen, a favorite poet of many readers of haiku. Tom has been writing haiku for over twenty years and has enchanted readers with his very personal outlook on family, nature and living in this modern world. Tom opens his heart so that those who read his poems not only feel like they know him, but because his poems touch a universal chord readers also feel like they know themselves a bit better too.

before sleep
 laughing to myself
           at myself

Since 1989, when Tom Clausen first came onto the haiku scene, he has been in the forefront of English language haiku, senryu, haibun and tanka.  Tom was a pioneer in the haiku movement that let haiku not only roam through the natural world, but let it into our cities, homes, and all other aspects of our modern world. No other haiku poet has so openly let the reader into his life and into his heart.  Tom, while retaining his individual voice,  manages to convey the aspiration and angst of all of us who live in this modern world and does so with a wry and whimsical smile. This collection which spans the entire 24 years of Tom’s insightful, honest and often humorous poetry will give those who know Tom’s work a chance to revisit old favorites and find gems they might haves missed and give those less familiar with Tom’s work a chance to see why he is one of the most influential haiku and senryu poets of his generation.

bitter wind-
we circle our candles
for peace


Review by Alan Summers

A Work of Love

16 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by in A Work of Love, Book reviews, Published Poems, tanka

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A Work of Love by Tom Clausen, Tiny Poems Press Chapbook Winner 1997.The booklets of the winners of the chapbook contest are 5.5 x 4.25 inches, staple bound, and available for $3.00 ppd each, or $10 for the set of four postpaid. Hint: go for the whole series. They are truly worth every cent. Order from Tiny Poems Press, 170 Elm Street, Enfield, CT 06082.Here, an existing language has been chosen by Tom Clausen to enlarge and explain certain spiritual spaces in which a privileged reader can participate. There is, like always, a price for such an experience – the reader somehow has to give up conventional linear thinking and instead has to give into physical and psychic areas where Clausen is not only at home but through several years of hard work also developed his own way of composing 5-liners.Tom Clausen has the advantage to work as a librarian, which means, he enjoys having constant access to world-literature. With this far reaching education he paved his way into the haiku/tanka/haibun-scene. Now, with Lynx also on-line, his work occurs in circles spreading into another body of resonance. With this latest composition of forty tanka, A Work of Love, Clausen offers new ways to refer to daily life at a level where the poetical language meets and surpasses the demanding situations we all often would like to stay away from. Well, with his booklet in a small pocket you may sit in a rowboat at dawn. You are on a trip while already having in mind to go diving; the element you’ll chose is the fluid one. Preparing yourself, there is some spare time ahead of you to be filled with something important, right? What’s available to be read? Perhaps Clausen’s tanka? Here are only three of the works of love: 


the envelope to me
sealed carefully with tape
on every seam
when opened, reveals
absolutely nothing




for over a decade
we’ve talked –
still you want our talk
as much as I want
the silences between




tolerably melancholy
to sit here while the kids play
and be lost in myself –
on a path nearby
she walks in the sun




Books Review Copyright © Jane Reichhold 1997.

in the woods

16 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by in American Haibun & Haiga, haibun, haiku, Published Poems, spring

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In the Woods

In 1962 when I was eleven I fancied myself to be a Last of the Mohicans, Huckleberry Finn, outback wilderness child, and had chosen the name “Wonapsa” to inspire and fulfill the fantasies I played out in the woods and gorges behind our house. The woods contained the world I loved, both real and imaginary. I would spy on rabbits, chipmunks, and woodpeckers. Sometimes I would sit as still as I could to see what being a ghost was all about. I laid on the ground, smelling the dirt and embracing a patch of earth just my size. I would climb trees listening to the wind sigh in the boughs and learn the creak that comes from deep in trees. The woods were filled with secrets I wanted to know.

sun after rain–
the garter snake fresh
from its skin

In the spring it was momentous to find mayapples and hepaticas and know new life arises from the litter and wreckage of winters’ leaving. One day while scampering up and down steep slopes in random search for tiny skulls, feathers, fossils, or a special perch to sit awhile, I peeked over a ridge top to see a man and a woman lying out on a ledge a way below me. What they were doing I had roughly heard about but never seen. The trees between me and them were few but a bit of guilt kept me from a steady stare. I became aware of the unlikeliness of what I was witnessing and felt an exhilaration of discovery. To see their flesh while they kept some clothes on filled me with curiosity. I do not re- member a distinct conclusion, my memory choosing to focus on the unison of their movements.

That night my heart and mind recreated it all over and over. What images I had seen. How purely animal and natural they were. How unexpected and free a view I had.

Years go by and that ledge is still there. My walks in the woods these days sometimes pass that place. I always look a little and remember. I’ve never seen anyone else there.

barren woods–
a clump of wild onion
scents the air

American Haibun & Haiga Volume 1

pencils

16 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by in American Haibun & Haiga, haibun, Published Poems, senryu

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Pencils

To this day I keep many more pencils than I need or use. Beside the computer at home and at work, beside the bed I keep them as practical artifacts of a former self and simpler time. In elementary school I began a pencil collection and by middle school I had become known as the pencil kid. I studied the various brands enough to recognize the unique patterns in the little metal tops that hold the eraser. Friends would approach me and hold out a pencil with just the head visible for me to guess the brand name. Some of my favorites were Venus Medalists, Ticonderogas, Eberhard Faber Mongols, Herald Square Mallards and Mohicans by Empire. My collection grew with a certain idiosyncratic reputation. The days of Bic pens, fountain pens and then keyboards came yet I’ve never been able to view any pencil as anything but a link to those days then and that special meaning in my heart.

high school bully—
holding the pencil out at arms length
before snapping it



American Haibun & Haiga Volume 4