Where do poets go when they leave Write Out Loud? It’s an interesting question, with of course many answers. In Steve Black’s case, he has recently been published along with five other contemporary haiku writers in an anthology titled off the main road, a collection of haiku and senryu by writers who have not yet published an individual collection.

Steve got in touch about the book because “I owe Write Out Loud a lot and hopefully those who knew me might be interested.”

He explained that “short verse appeals to me in many ways … around 2015 I decided to concentrate on tanka (five lines) and fortunately have been published in all the specialist journals. I've even had a few in mainstream journals, you can find some recent examples at Snakeskin and London Grip. A couple of years ago I branched out into haiku/senryu. It is a vibrant community particularly in the US where Zen and the Beats had a big influence.”

While thumbing through the anthology, I noticed early on that many of the examples did not conform to my idea of the haiku, of five, seven, and five syllables. Steve said: “The form has changed a lot from the 5/7/5 days.”

And the difference between haiku and senryu? According to one expert, haiku typically represents a moment of perception, often with a seasonal reference, rather than being just about nature. Senryu is similar to haiku except that it tends to be more satirical or ironic in tone.

Here are a couple of examples of Steve’s work from the anthology:

 

black ice

i fall again

on love lane

 

walking behind

the mobility scooter

his thai bride

 

The other poets included in the anthology are David Weston, from Wivenhoe, Essex; Meera Rehm, from Nepal, currently living in Oxfordshire; John Pappas, a drummer and lyricist in a punk rock band, who lives in Boston; Mary Ann Conley, from the Baltimore-Washington DC area, currently living in the Midwest; and Nick Hoffman, from Michigan, US, now living in Cork, Ireland. The editors of the anthology are David Jacobs and Andrew Shimield.

 

off the main road, eds: David Jacobs, Andrew Shimield, Alba Publishing, £12