GUEST POET PAGE

HONORING THE MEMORY OF

CHARLES B. DICKSON

~ June 14, 1915 - May 12, 1991 ~

And yet how long a spirit such as his lives on!

--H.F. Noyes

I was introduced to the poetry of Charles B. Dickson by our first guest poet, Peggy Willis Lyles.  She knew his work would speak to me.  It did.  And it still does.  I'm grateful to Virginia Dickson who, on behalf of his family and estate, has enthusiastically given us permission to share some of his haiku with visitors to our website. 

Charlie, as Virginia and his friends refer to him, was a freelance writer and professional journalist from Georgia whose poetry, articles and short fiction were published in the United States and abroad.  His interest in haiku

began in 1984 and his haiku became widely published almost immediately.  His awards include The Museum of Haiku Literature Award and first place in the Harold G. Henderson Memorial Awards.

What I love best about his haiku is the way he gracefully wove beautiful words into haunting images.  It is clear from reading the tributes written by other haiku poets that his unique voice touched many.  It is our hope in sharing some of his work here that many more might discover the treasure of his words, and that old friends might stop by to revisit old favorites.

Up from the coal mine     the sun the wind

 

                                          waking far from home
                                          the sunrise songs
                                          of unknown birds

                                          Pink clouds at dusk
                                          in shallows among the reeds
                                          a dead heron bobbing

                                         the softness

                                         of false dawn

                                         a wren chirps

charred farmhouse rubble . . .

still the purple martins swoop

to their high-hung gourds

                                        a bobwhite calls

                                        from deep meadow grass

                                        a bobwhite answers

deepening twilight—

the old man calls the blind mare

and feeds her apples

 

Credits:  Flickering campfire (Haiku: The Poetry of Zen, Hyperion, 1996; Woodnotes 31, 1997); silent cathedral (First place,  Harold G. Henderson Awards, 1990; Frogpond XIII:4, 1990); a waterfall glints (Haiku Quarterly 2:2, 1990); rain-swept parking lot (Modern Haiku XXII:2, 1991; Frogpond 21:1, 1998;

Hobo Spring, 1998; Snow on the Water, The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, Jim Kacian, Editor, Red Moon Press, 1998; Favorite

Haiku 2, H.F. Noyes, Red Moon Press, 1999); reed-fringed shore (A Moon in Each Eye, Charles B. Dickson, AHA Books, 1993; South by Southeast 1:1, 1994; Favorite Haiku 4, H.F. Noyes, Red Moon Press, 2001); twilight storm (Kô, 1987; Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku, Bruce Ross, editor, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1993; Modern Haiku XXIX:3, 1998; Snow on the Water, The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, Jim Kacian, Editor, Red Moon Press, 1998); charred farmhouse rubble (Brussels Sprout VIII:2 (1991); deepening twilight (Wind Chimes 17, 1985); migrating geese (Modern Haiku XX:1,1989; Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku, Bruce Ross, editor, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1993; selected for an upper elementary textbook published by Houghton-Mifflin); Up from the coal mine (Frogpond IX:2, 1986); waking

far from home (Haiku Quarterly 2:1, 1990; Haiku Quarterly 3:3, 1991, In Memoriam); A Moon in Each Eye, Charles B. Dickson, AHA Books, 1993;

Brussels Sprout X:3, 1993, review); field of Queen Anne’s lace (Frogpond XI:2, 1988; Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku, Bruce Ross, editor, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1993); Pink clouds at dusk (Modern Haiku, 1985(?); Woodnotes 3, 1989); the softness (Haiku Quarterly 3:3, 1991); a bobwhite calls (Brussels Sprout VII:3 , 1991); this trail so long (Woodnotes 9, 1991, In Memory)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Photograph by Cindy Zackowitz

OUR FIRST GUEST POET

PEGGY WILLIS LYLES

There is depth, richness, wonder, and pure poetry in her work that continues to enrich the reader with each new reading.  Peggy is a long-time member of the Haiku Society of America and lives with her husband in Tucker, Georgia.  Her haiku have been published worldwide, have won the most prestigious of the haiku awards, and are included in many anthologies and haiku classics such as The Haiku Handbook, by William J. Higginson with Penny Harter and The Haiku Anthology, 2nd and 3rd editions, edited by Cor van den Heuvel.

Peggy writes, "Sometimes we say too much. Words get in the way. . . . A good haiku offers just enough words, just the right words, to recreate the essence of a specific time and place and hold it permanently available."

Here are some of our favorites from her most-recent book, To Hear the Rain: Selected Haiku of Peggy Lyles. (Information about how to add this book to your library, and publishing credits follow the poetry.)