Review in Frogpond

reviewed by Ce Rosenow

Glimmering Hour beautifully picks up where Haiku Northwest’s last anthology, No Longer Strangers, left off. That book celebrated the group’s first twenty-five years. The new volume covers the next ten years, 2014-2024, while also adding to the important historical information from the first collection.

The introduction, “Enlarging the Circle” by Michael Dylan Welch, reminds readers of the group’s origins in the home of its founder, Francine Porad. He then connects its more recent activities to these beginnings: the Seabeck annual retreat including the installation of twenty haiku plaques on the Seabeck Conference Center grounds; collaborative events with groups in and outside of the Seattle area; Haiku Northwest’s YouTube channel; and its new status as a nonprofit organization. As Welch states, “The book you now hold in your hands is an extension of those early meetings convened in Francine Porad’s living room—displaying the circle of haiku appreciation we have eagerly developed in the last ten years, adding to the previous 25.” The community fostered by Porad and maintained by the group’s members is at the center of this anthology.

Porad, who passed away in 2006, still maintains a valued presence in this community. For instance, Haiku Northwest oversees the Porad Award each year and has produced videos of the winners from 2018 on. In honor of Porad’s contributions, the anthology includes a wonderful essay comprised of personal reflections by Connie Hutchison. Hutchison was the associate editor of Brussels Sprout, the journal Porad edited for eight years, and a close friend. Her insights and memories provide special details about Porad as a poet, visual artist, editor, and leader in the American Haiku Movement. Hutchison points out that the essay can “help others know her better and appreciate her legacy.” Readers are given a real sense of Porad as a person, poet, and artist. This anthology also provides a window into the history of haiku in Washington state.

One benefit of carefully constructed anthologies such as Glimmering Hour is the preservation of haiku literary history. Hutchison’s essay is one aspect of that history as is Welch’s introduction. Additionally, the book contains lists of the group’s officers and directors as well as its publications. Haiku Northwest’s interest in preserving its own history extends to its website, YouTube channel, and the archiving of its materials at the University of Washington, thanks largely to Hutchison’s efforts. Glimmering Hour is a significant contribution to that larger work.

Another equally important benefit of this anthology is the presentation of haiku and senryu by so many fine poets and the sense of community that permeates throughout. Seventy-nine poets provide the book’s 158 poems [actually 202]. Eleven of the poets are listed alphabetically in the memorial section with four poems each, including the following haiku by Johnny Baranski:

long before I came

long after I leave

blossoming pear

The rest of the poems, however, are not organized by the author’s last name. Instead, they are gracefully arranged by subject and by relationship to each preceding and subsequent poem. In this way, the robust haiku/senryu section reads as a well-edited journal or book, with poems linking and shifting much in the way Hutchison describes putting together an issue of Brussels Sprout. Consider the following three poems printed consecutively across two pages:

both parents passed

nostalgia

even for the scolding Bill Fay

inheritance –

her recipe for stock

and how to pick a bone R. J. Swanson

tarnished silver

the warp

of dreams Dianne Garcia

Different approaches to the loss of one’s parents and types of inheritance play off one another, providing a rich and layered experience of each specific moment. This same type of sequencing runs throughout the selections of one, three, and four-line haiku addressing a range of subjects, styles, and tones.

The artwork in the book enhances the poetry and the historical documentation. Artist and poet Sheila Sondik created sumi paintings on crinkled paper. She notes that the work was “created between 2000 and 2007” and involves “briefly soaking masa, a lightly stiffened Japanese paper, in water, crushing it into a ball, then gently laying it flat. Diluted sumi ink brushed over the damp paper creates unpredictable textures.” These beautiful paintings suggest but don’t insist on the Pacific Northwest landscape, connect to haiku’s Japanese history, and recall Porad’s work as a visual artist.

Glimmering Hour is an excellent anthology that celebrates a vibrant, talented, and welcoming community: Haiku Northwest.

Here is one final example from this highly recommended book, the title poem by Carmen Sterba:

glimmering hour

an amazement of deer

in my camera