From the Authors

The traditional haibun is a Japanese literary form composed in two parts: a short prose poem or narrative, typically personal and/or place-oriented, followed by a haiku.

The prose poems in (e)laments explore structure at their core, with particular attention to rhythm and euphony so as to pair seamlessly with the meter of the micropoetry. Their subject matter forms the titular “laments”—the various instances of the speaker’s anger, dismay, frustration, and disillusionment create a confessional narrative throughout the collection.

The lineated micropoems in (e)laments are closer kin to tanka, another Japanese short form, than haiku. While haiku in English are typically one to three lines of heavily compressed language focusing on imagery and nature, tanka in English are typically five lines of compact yet rhythmic language representing an event and/or mood. Five lines was the operating constraint for this verse; programmatic syllable counts are disregarded by the author as an incidental artifact of imperfect translation between two highly distinct phonological and morphological systems (Japanese and English). These poems are informed not only by the contemporary English-language formal work published in journals such as Modern Haiku or Frogpond, which typically eschews 5-7-5 (or 5-7-5-7-7) dogmatism in favor of ergonomic compression and clarity of image, but also by concrete or visual approaches to the page, as well as metrical or sonic approaches to the line.