In Remembrance

William “Bill” Hart

William “Bill” Hart’s Celebration of Life
Inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting
March 27, 2023 @ 8:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
FOR DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT: Avi Sills
avi@tgentertain.com
Avi@Stream-2U.com

It is with great sadness that I announce that we lost one of our haiku poets, William Hart, known to us as “Bill,” on February 11^th. He was born on January 27, 1945 in Wichita, Kansas. He passed away on February 11, 2023 from Covid-19 complicated by underlying lymphoma and respiratory issues. He attended the University of Kansas, Wichita State University, and received his PhD in English in 1985 from the University of Southern California. He retired from the English Department at California State University, Los Angeles in 2000.

A poet and writer, his stories and poem have been widely published in journals and anthologies. His chapbook, Paris (Timberline Press 1995), won a Merit Book Award (3^rd place) from the Haiku Society of America. Other chapbooks and books of haiku and tanka include, Monsoon (Timberline Press, 1991), Wildcat Road (Timberline Press, 2000), On Cat Time (Timberline Press, 2014), Ballygunge: Kokata Tanka (Modern English Tanka Press, 2010) and cloud eats mountain (Red Moon Press, 2013).
He edited the 2015 SCHSG Anthology, drawn to the light, and co-edited the 2013 HNA anthology, Close to the Wind, with Michael Dylan Welch. He also published several books of fiction.
Our thoughts go out to his wife Jaysari, at this time.

Here are some of Bill’s haiku:

fall twilight
in the bungalow for rent
a vacuum sings
        from Close to the Wind, HNA 2013 Anthology

airport carousel
a suitcase appears
with butterfly aboard
        from drawn to the light, SCHSG 2015 Anthology

evening sleet
the koi wait it out
under the bridge
        from Modern Haiku 44:2, Summer 2013

bar light
more potent even
than moonlight
        from tsuri-dōrō, Issue #10, July/August 2022

sparrows pour
through a blue hole
into our gray world
        from Modern Haiku 41.2, Summer 2010

Bill Kenney

Those of you who are also Haiku Society of America members may have noticed the obituary for long-time SCHSG friend, Bill Kenney. In the days of our live meetings and before he was diagnosed with cancer, he used to come out to Southern California once a year (usually in June) and he always timed his visits to make our SCHSG meetings at the museum and then later the library. ~ Deborah P Kolodji

Obituary written by Jay Friedenberg:

With a sad heart, we report the passing away of Bill Kenney. He was an outstanding poet with a long history of emotionally moving and insightful writing. Bill had a keen intellect, kind outlook and subtle sense of irony. He was the master of short-form haiku, always able to say the most with the least. He will be sorely missed by those who knew him and by the wider haiku community.

Bill was a professor for many years in the English Department at Manhattan College, and an active participant in the New York City Spring Street Haiku group. He began writing haiku in 2004, a month before his 72nd birthday, and consistently published in leading haiku journals; he was, as well, selected for anthologies. Some of his more recent accomplishments include winning the 2021 Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards for his volume keep walking (Winchester VA, Red Moon Press). He is also the author of the earth pushes back (2016) and senior admission (2018).

For those interested in learning more about his poetry, you can visit his blog. In addition, a video of Bill reading some of his poetry at the 2017 Haiku North America meeting in Santa Fe can be found at the following link. Here is just a sampling of some of his wonderful creations:

open all night
the waitress stares into
her reflection

ice cream truck
the children think
I’m a grown-up

tiny sips
to make it last
autumn twilight

~ Jay Friedenberg, HSA President

Ignatius Fay

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Ignatius Fay. For those of you who didn’t know him, he was a long-standing member of the organization’s Executive Committee where he served as the Newsletter Editor. He also contributed to the creation of our journal, Frogpond, the annual Membership Anthology and was a tutor in the Mentorship Program. Beyond this he was active in the wider haiku community in Canada and the United States for many years. He will be sorely missed.

Ignatius Fay (born Ignatius Charles Peter Fay, March 30, 1950, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada), Canadian invertebrate paleontologist, graphic designer, poet, author, editor and publisher. He was the author of a two-volume anecdotal autobiography; co-author of three poetry collections, a coffee table art book of Canadian scenery, and a thriller novel centered on a conflict between vampires and Native Haida mythology.

His first published poem appeared in 2008, the same year he published a book of haiku/senryu, Haiga Moments: pens and lens, with photographs by Ray Belcourt. In 2011, he published Points In Between, an anecdotal history of his early years. His latest collection of poems, Breccia, is a collaboration with fellow haiku poet, Irene Golas, published in October 2012 by Lulu.com. In 2020, he published his first novel, Blood Cove, co-authored by Raymond J. Belcourt.

He served for eight years as the editor of the email newsletter for the Haiku Society of America as well as the layout artist for a number of HSA publications, including Frogpond. He is the founding editor of Tandem: The Rengay Journal and served as Ontario regional coordinator for Haiku Canada. He was disabled with severe cardiopulmonary diseases and lived in Sudbury, Ontario.

Ignatius will be dearly missed by friends, family and the haiku community.

snow day
laughing at comics
we don’t understand

cool March breeze—
between faded tea towels
her frayed pink bra

stakes for the peas—
letting my subconscious
work it out

~ Jay Friedenberg, HSA President