April is National Poetry Month; April 17 is International Haiku Poetry Day; and April 26 is Poem In Your Pocket Day.
In the culmination of a decades-long dream, my mother Sydell Rosenberg’s new picture book, “H is for Haiku: A Treasury of Haiku from A to Z,” was released by Penny Candy Books on April 10.
My mother was well-anthologized over her approximately 30-year writing career, but her dream of publishing a kids’ book eluded her. I took up her goal of publishing one of her kids’ manuscripts from the 1970s/1980s, and thanks to her, I am now writing and sometimes even publishing my own haiku. I always will be a beginner, but it’s the process of trying to capture the “haiku moment” that most matters.
My mother lived much of her life in Queens, where my brother Nathan and I were raised, though I now live in Teaneck. She also taught in NYC. Many of her “city haiku” reflect her surroundings and an urban sensibility, but they are also universal. She was a charter member of the Haiku Society of America in 1968. It turns 50 years old this year and I am a member now too.
Haiku are brief, but they impel the reader to slow down and linger over something he or she may ordinarily overlook. As I say in my introduction, haiku help make so-called “small moments” big. Children and adults alike can relate to these evocative “word-pictures.”
“H is for Haiku” is beautifully illustrated by Sawsan Chalabi, and available from Amazon or https://www.pennycandybooks.com/.
By Amy Losak
