Joan D. Stamm

Orcas Island, Washington

Joan began writing haiku in the early ’90s when she lived in Kobe, Japan. Her haiku have appeared in Frogpond, The Daily Yomiuri, Haiku Headlines, Mainichi Daily News, and two haiku anthologies. In 1994, she initiated a renku (36-stanza linked verse), with nine East Coast poets who attended a haiku retreat with her at Dai Bosatsu Zendo in Upstate New York. Joan kept the poem circulating until completion, three years later. Entitled “Coast-to-Coast Renga,” it was published by Tuttle in Bruce Ross’s How to Haiku in 2002.

white moth

taps the temple window

it too seeks the light

flicker of blue

appears and disappears

into the pine tree

on the backs of rocks

hikers

crossing the stream

the garden wall

cannot contain

the weeping cherry

home with flu

watching shadows

on an open book