As winter ended in 2014, I began writing haiku. Later, when the tree through the window turned red, I began calling them Red Leaf Haiku.

Beyond following the standard “5-7-5” English format sometimes taught in grade school (two lines of five syllables with a seven-syllable line in between), my brief poems often don’t fit traditional definitions of haiku. Yet, while they may not be considered haiku by some or even most, I know this: they are all Red Leaf Haiku.

I’ve meticulously drawn this collection of 800 Red Leaf Haiku from the more than 4,000 I’ve written so far—from my first attempts in spring 2014 through my most recent efforts of early spring 2018. Were I to sail the black river now, these are the ones I’d wish to bring.

This book precisely arranges what I consider my most personal, heartfelt and surreal works of a genre I’ve tried to make my own. I’m not the same person I was before writing them. My hope is you won’t be the same person after reading them.

—John Clark Helzer, 17 April 2018