Michael Dylan Welch

Sammamish, Washington

Michael Dylan Welch is editor and publisher of Press Here haiku and tanka books. From 2009 to 2013, he served as vice president for the Haiku Society of America (HSA) (a position he has held for several previous years, too), and also served as a board member of the Washington Poets Association from 2004 to 2013. He also curates two monthly poetry reading series (for longer poetry), SoulFood Poetry Night and the Redmond Association of Spokenword (for which he is also president). In 2008 and 2009 he was regional coordinator for the HSA's Washington State region, Haiku Northwest, and in 2008 he cofounded Haiku Northwest's annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway with Alice Frampton. Michael edited the haiku journal Woodnotes from 1989 to 1997, edited Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem from 1998 to 2002, cofounded the Haiku North America conference in 1991 (directing the 2005 conference in Port Townsend and the 2011 conference in Seattle), cofounded the American Haiku Archives in 1996, and founded the Tanka Society of America in 2000, for which he served as president for five years. In 2010, he also founded National Haiku Writing Month, or NaHaiWriMo, which also has a very active Facebook page. His haiku and longer poems have been published in hundreds of journals and anthologies in at least twenty languages. In 2008, PIE Books published his contranslation (with Emiko Miyashita) of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, or 100 Poets: Passions of the Imperial Court, a collection of waka (tanka) poems compiled in 13th-century Japan by Fujiwara no Teika. In 2012, a translation from this collection was featured on 150,000,000 postage stamps issued by the United States Postal Service. He has also published Noh (2010), Bonsai (2011), and Furoshiki (2011), all art/photography books from PIE Books. His most recent haiku books include For a Moment, published in 2009 by King's Road Press in Canada, Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends, published in 2010 by Press Here (coedited with Alan Summers), Tidepools: Haiku On Gabriola, published in 2011 by Pacific-Rim Publishers in British Columbia, and With Cherries on Top, published in 2012 by Press Here, among others. Michael's website, devoted mostly to haiku and related poetry, is called Graceguts.


first star—

a seashell held

to my baby's ear


crackling beach fire—

we hum in place of words

we can't recall


grocery shopping—

pushing my cart faster

through feminine protection


spring breeze—

the pull of her hand

as we near the pet store


warm winter evening—

the chairs askew

after the poetry reading