It's Out!

Today my collection of haiku, called Bitter Pills, comes out worldwide. You can get a copy from Amazon or from the publisher, Cyberwit.net. Many thanks to editor, Dr. Karunesh Kumar Agarwal, who walked me through the process and designed the cover. The poems are numbered so you can check the acknowledgements at the end if you want. All have been previously published, tried and true.

These are tiny poems, ideas or images boiled down to a bare minimum. They took me years to write and revise. Sometimes smaller is harder. Yet, as they say, Small is Beautiful.

As I put the poems together, I needed a theme and a title. Bitter Pills came to me instantly, given the ambivalent attitude, sometimes bordering on pessimism, of many of the haiku. The form is often three-lines mimicking the traditional Japanese forms, but allowing for modern English-language variations. The most traditional are first, then they get more experimental towards the end. Most would technically be called senryu, which is a more human-centered type.

If you buy a copy, I'll be happy. Hope you like it. Let me know. Read them slowly, like taking pills (even sugar pills), maybe one a day or even one a week. I think there are, in fact, 52.

In these hard times, a little book of little poems might be just what the doctor ordered to combat the chaos all around us.

Martin