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Frogpond 35.2 • 2012

Museum of Haiku
Literature Award

Haiku & Senryu

Essay on Nick Virgilio

Haibun

Haiku Sequence

Renku

Book Review

From the Editors

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From the Editors

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

Winter has turned to spring, and spring to summer, as we add the final touches to our inaugural issue of Frogpond. Faced with a daunting challenge, coupled with an extreme learning curve, we've proceded with faith and daring to do the thing we thought we could not do. First and foremost, we didn't do it alone. Thank you to George Swede and Anita Krumins for entrusting us with the editorship of Frogpond, which embodies their four-year effort of labor, love, and excellence. Our gratitude to them and to the HSA Executive Committee for their trust, support, and encouragement. A deep bow goes to Noah Banwarth, who, with the patience of six saints, tutored his mom in the workings of the design program used to produce this and future issues. We tip our hats in appreciation to Charlie Trumbull and Bill Pauly, whose expertise and sharp attention to detail guided us in the final proofing and editing stages.

We are fully aware that this letter could not be written if we didn't have the support of our readers and contributors. Your talents and desire to create and share are reflected throughout these pages. During the submission period we received over 3,000 haiku and senryu and over 150 haibun and other linked forms, as well as thought-provoking essays and books for review. We encourage you to take your time with each selection, to discover the links and shifts, to ponder and question, to explore your vision of the haiku arts, and to strive for excellence in your writing life.

As we look to the future, what we do know we can—and want to—do is assemble a Frogpond that reflects the multifarious nature of haiku practice, whether in solo poem and prose or collaborative sequence. We want to make room for many voices: the new as well as the familiar, the near as well as the far, the young as well as the old. We want, as well, to represent the full range of our community's thoughts and reflections in insightful reviews and concise essays that touch on process, purpose, and possibility. The root word of essay means, after all, to try, in essence to dare ourselves to experiment, explore, and grow—something Eleanor Roosevelt obviously knew a lot about.

Francine Banwarth, Editor
Michele Root-Bernstein, Assistant Editor

Francine Banwarth, Editor
985 So Grandview
Dubuque, Iowa 52003

<fnbanwarth@yahoo.com>

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