Rob Taylor

folio : Contemporary Haiku

 

 

          the baby gifts us
     silence and
          the sound of it

 

 

          mid-dream
     my father’s voice becomes
          my daughter’s cry

 

 

          another sunrise
     but I am awake
          for this one

  

 

I aim to follow in the tradition of Matsuo Bashō and Kobayashi Issa, poets who are vital to my writing practice (haiku and otherwise), while also acknowledging the language, ocean, centuries, and talented haiku poets between us. When it comes to form, I follow Bashō’s lead when he said “Even if you have three or four extra syllables, or even five or seven, you needn’t worry as long as it sounds right. But if even one syllable is stale in your mouth, give it all your attention.” (trans. Sam Hamill) In practice, that manifests in my using seventeen syllables as an unofficial “upper limit,” and ten or so as a lower limit. But my central formal goal is to include not one unnecessary syllable.

 

 

 

Rob Taylor is the author of three poetry collections, including The News (Gaspereau Press, 2016), which was a finalist for the 2017 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Rob is also the editor of What the Poets Are Doing: Canadian Poets in Conversation (Nightwood Editions, 2018) and guest editor of Best Canadian Poetry 2019 (Biblioasis, 2019). His fourth collection, Strangers, will be published by Biblioasis in Spring 2021. He lives with his family in Port Moody, BC.