Like many people, I was taught that haiku were poems that followed a 5-7-5 syllable count. In fact, I taught haiku that way for years myself. I’ll even own up to the fact that I used haiku as my “special lesson” on days when I was being observed. There was something so satisfyingly tight about the form and my observers (read: my bosses) left the room thinking actual learning had taken place. And, in fairness, maybe a little learning did occur – but a few years later, under the patient tutelage of a kind magazine editor named Robert Speiss, I learned that modern English language haiku is a much richer form than I had ever imagined.

I cracked up when I first heard there was a journal dedicated to haiku – Modern Haiku, in Madison, WI. (Of course it was Madison — the Berkeley of the Midwest!). Having taught 5-7-5 haiku for a few years I thought I was an expert. So, I thought I would do the journal a favor and send out my first ever submissions. When Bob Speiss, the editor, rejected all of my submissions, I took the rejection as a perverse challenge and tried again. But he rejected the next two batches as well. (My students love this story, by the way!) In his extra-ordinary capacity as a teacher-editor, though, Bob always wrote an encouraging comment by hand with each rejection.