The First Dareby P M F Johnson High/Coo Chapbook Award 2026 ISBN 978-1-929820-43-6 • perfectbound ~ ~ ~ When I was a young boy, my family lived far enough out of town that I remember sheep grazing in the pasture across the lake on which my friend and I fished for bullheads. Left a great deal to my own devices, I learned to listen to the silence in the forest to see what it contained, I nosed into the bracken to see what might be growing (or hiding) there, and I climbed many trees to feel closer to the sky. Later, once we moved into my grandparents' house in the city, we still lived near a wading creek, but my primary experience with nature became a large garden we grew for vegetables and roses, although I still found woods to wander. But in those days of my late childhood, nature served more as a shelter and refuge than a boundless source of adventure. When I began to write, that tension between nature and civilization, quiet and bustle, became a primary touchstone in my poetry and fiction. Then, for a couple of decades, life redirected things. I courted my wife, asking her every day for five years before she agreed to marry me, the best choice of my whole life. A writer herself, she was in many ways even more restless than I, so through the subsequent years we lived in Santa Fe, Connecticut, Boston, and St. Paul. I made a living in computers as a programmer, network administrator, and so on, and chances to get out into nature dwindled to forays on vacation and visits to the family farm. So, when we bought our own house at last, with room for a garden, it was a spiritual homecoming. Digging in the earth, beginning the November rose knows Being focused on that garden, when I discovered haiku and senryu in my forties a whole new way to discuss silence and nature opened up for me. More than any other writing, for me, haiku are about what is left unsaid. What only reveals itself with patience, and maybe even some humility. I consider that process of revelation a great gift. Nowadays, living downtown in a major city, my wife and I live a far more housebound life, so once again silence is a close companion, and more often haiku arise from memories of moments, reflections that reveal depths I maybe did not realize at the time. But the chance to reflect is surely another gift that experiencing haiku gives us. And while I still consider patience and humility to be lifelong lessons, I would also say that in this latter part of my life, my greatest lesson, and reward, has become gratitude. So, I thank the editors who have accepted my poems, the readers who may enjoy them, and my wife who has endured listening to their many raw iterations without leaving me or even throwing (many) sticks. ~ P M F Johnson |
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Acknowledgments Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following journals and publications in which some of these poems appeared: “refugee” won the Brady Senryu Award, and first appeared in Frogpond. “tearing the filter” was short-listed for a Touchstone Award, and first appeared in bottle rockets. “her hand curled” won Honorable Mention in the Henderson Haiku Contest, and first appeared in Frogpond. “after she leaves,” “the butterfly too,” “spring rain,” “tree shadows,” and “wooded path” first appeared in Acorn. “hearing the rain,” “porch light,” “smiling at each other,” “toaster oven,” and “when prayer starts” first appeared in bottle rockets. “autumn wilderness” and “summer moon” first appeared in First Frost.
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More Acknowledgments “giving up,” “the moon holds,” “morning snow,” “waves overlapping,” “wildfire smoke,” and “winter morning” first appeared in The Heron's Nest. “beginning the kiss,” “chocolate,” “compost heap,” “curve of the river,” “dusk crows,” “giving up,” “invasive cattails,” “nightly ritual,” “petroglyphs,” and “what comforts her” first appeared in Frogpond. “arguing over,” “closing my journal,” “firing range,” “leaf eddying,” “shooting gallery,” “this familiar church,” and “unsure” first appeared in Mayfly. “the best time,” “cello echoes,” “a fish in the tree,” “geese calling,” “icy snow bank,” “snow melt,” “summer's back steps,” “swimming hole,” “a tangle of trees,” “the war,” “winter night,” and “winter's tangled up” first appeared in Modern Haiku. |
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