Crazy Bitches by Roberta Beary to be released on 8 March 2025.

Now available for pre-orders at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Cover art: Widow with Shawl © by artist Kevin Beary. All rights reserved.

I’m thrilled to announce the forthcoming publication of this full-length collection by my favorite haiku poet and haibunista, Roberta Beary, Touchstone Award-winning poet and long-time haibun editor at Modern Haiku. This book features 78 haibun (and two cheribun) selected by yours truly, in collaboration with Roberta, from poems written over a 20-year period (2004 through 2024).

With Lew Watts and Rich Youmans, Roberta is co-author of Haibun: A Writer’s Guide (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023).

For a comprehensive list of additional books and publications, see Roberta Beary at Poets&Writers.

Three Excerpts from Crazy Bitches

Dad Says

It’s a phase that some boys go through but most don’t. Most don’t wear their sister’s lipstick and keep it a secret. A secret my brother knows is that I like kissing my best friend Esme who dresses in boy clothes. My best friend Esme who dresses in boy clothes is what Dad calls a phase some girls go through but most don’t.

upside down
day
moon rising

—First published in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 20, September 2023); reprinted in upside down: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2023 (Red Moon Press, 2024) and Pride Poems (2024).

Genetics

Your eyes are big and round like your father’s 
but while his are the color of the Irish Sea 
yours are the color of the muddy fields 
on my father’s land 
fit only for the peasants who worked them.

abortion day
a shadow flutters
the fish tank

—First published in Rattle #47 (Spring 2015), Tribute to Japanese Forms, and nominated by Rattle in 2016 for the Pushcart Prize; reprinted in galaxy of dust: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2015 (Red Moon Press, 2016).

The Two Fathers

hometown visit sunlight haloes a dusty pew

I recite my brief litany of sins. Spilled milk on my sister’s essay. Stole her pocket change. Said she wasn’t home when some boy called. The priest grants me absolution. Then opens a newspaper. I linger on the other side of the grille. I want to tell him about my father. The priest sighs, licks the tip of his pencil and marks the paper. He repeats this procedure several times. At last he looks up. Under the weak light of confined space, he blesses me. Then makes a dismissive gesture with both hands. His paper falls against the lit screen. Yesterday’s horse races. Each line slashed with a row of x’s. The priest’s feral eyes identical to my father’s. Home after a day at the track, pockets empty, breath laced with whiskey. I open the door of the confessional. Meander to the Lady Chapel. Kneel on red velvet. Fold my hands. Make a vow. Never again will I confess my sins. Outside I see my sister, smoking. She disengages from a group of boys. Hands one her cigarette. We take the long way back. Neither of us mentions who is waiting for us.

votive candle—
veined hands spark
a prayer for the dead

—First published in The Haibun Journal (Issue 2:2, 2020); reprinted in Contemporary Haibun 16 anthology (Red Moon Press, 2021).