Haiku Outside of Definition

by Jim Kacian

Definitions are pedagogically useful, but to poets they are retrospective and limiting. There are poems being written outside any definition we currently hold that will one day be seen as essential to any understanding of the genre. That’s a sure indication of haiku’s health.

i hope i’m right where the river ice ends

      Frogpond 35:2 – Jim Kacian

the large gone and in its place empty

       Roadrunner 13.1 – Jim Kacian

it won’t end
and it won’t get better—
crow’s caw

       Living Haiku Anthology – Jim Kacian

Jim Kacian is the founder and director of The Haiku Foundation, owner and publisher of Red Moon Press.

"The honors that have mattered the most to me have been the trust to help bring other poets' work and projects to fruition, and their acknowledgments that one or another of my own poems have touched them in some way." Jim Kacian

Jim has been published extensively including: Anagrammaton (Beyond Baroque Press, Venice CA 1984); Karasevdah (Red Moon Press, Winchester VA 1986); Hommages (Black Heron Press, Baltimore MD 1989); Presents of Mind (Katsura Press, Lake Oswego OR 1996); Chincoteague (Amelia Press, Bakersfield CA 1996; reprint Red Moon Press); Six Directions (La Alameda Press, Albuquerque NM 1997); In Concert (Red Moon Press, Winchester VA 1999); Second Spring (Red Moon Press, Winchester VA 2001); Iz Kamna [Out of the Stone](Drustvo Apokalipsa, Ljubljana Slovenia 2001); How to Haiku (Red Moon Press online 2003); dead reckoning (Red Moon Press, Winchester VA 2005); border lands (Red Moon Press, Winchester VA 2006); orbit tertius (Red Moon Press, Winchester VA 2007); long after (Albalibre, Rossignol Marittimo Italy 2008); road of stone (Red Moon Press, Winchester VA 2009); where i leave off ('t schrijverke, Den Bosch Netherlands 2010).