The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku
WILLIAM J. HIGGINGSON studied Japanese at Yale University where he discovered the haiku, and served, with the U.S. Air Force in Japan. He is a charter member of the Haiku Society of America, founded in 1968, and edited and publishedHaiku Magazine(1971-76). He has three published collections of longer poems and one of haiku, and has work appearing in magazines and anthologies worldwide. He has also taught in the National Endowment for the Arts "Poets-in-the Schools" program, leading writing workshops in hundreds of schools, and he regularly speaks at conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. Higginson's international anthology of haiku for children,Wind in the Long Grass, is a classroom favorite. His two-volume sequel toThe Haiku Handbook,The Haiku SeasonsandHaiku World, gives a comprehensive view of the history, present state, and international possibilities of seasonal consciousness in poetry.PENNY HARTER, Higginson's wife and collaborator on the Handbook, is a poet and teacher with 14 collections of poems to her credit. She has received three grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for her poetry, and an award from the Poetry Society of America. She has served as a visiting poet for the Council and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in classes from kindergarten through high school. Her work is published internationally; among her recent books areShadow Play: Night Haiku, a collection for children, and her latest book,Turtle Blessing. The couple lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Harter teaches at Santa Fe Preparatory School.