The former president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Deborah P Kolodji moderates the Southern California Haiku Study Group in Pasadena, California.   When she’s not traveling all over the Western U.S. in her career as a technical consultant for a business software company, she can be found walking the beaches and botanical gardens around Los Angeles.  Haiku is that part of the day where she can pause and rediscover what’s important, whether it’s the egret that flies across the street during a red light, or the web of an orb spider by the front door.

Deborah writes haiku, longer poetry, short stories, and articles.   Her work has appeared in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Acorn, bottle rockets, Daily Haiku, South by Southeast, Simply Haiku,  Strange Horizons, Star*Line, poeticdiversity, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, Pearl, The Comstock Review, St. Anthony Messenger Magazine, THEMA, and Chicken Soup for the Dieter’s Soul.
Deborah is the co-chair of the local organizing committee for Haiku North America 2013: Intervals, which will take place in August 2013 on board the Queen Mary.
She has published four chapbooks of poetry and has appeared in a number of anthologies, including Haiku 21, Modern Haiku Press, 2011, Lighting the Global Lantern:  A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Haiku and Related Forms, various Red Moon anthologies by Red Moon Press as well as Rhysling Anthologies by the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

Recent projects include her participation in “Ants on the Sidewalk,” a podcast by the Haiku Chronicles (www.haikuchronicles.com) and Hiver Jingles, a bilingual French/English rensaku chapbook published in Quebec.

Selected Haiku

white marble
I am small at the feet
of Lincoln

***

roadside wildflowers
a cop’s bright lights
in my rearview mirror

*** 

the world so big
without you in it--
summer sea

 ***

morning tidepools
a hermit crab tries on
the bottle cap

***

deep winter
the faded coffee mug
that says “grandpa”

***

shorter days
the pastor’s sermon
longer

***

sidewalk ATM
a deposit slip picked up
by the spring breeze

***

talk radio
a swirl of gnats
in my headlights

***

virtual garden
she plants four seasons
of daffodils

 ***

one mistake
after another…
falling leaves

 ***

we promise each other
nothing will change
slack tide

***

pulsing sea jellies
a symphony orchestra
on mute

***

summer moonrise
the distance between sea stars
shrinking

***

gray morning
the whole world
a foghorn

***

tidal drift
one harbor seal
noses another

***

the pond
where koi once swam
shadows of willows

***

garden whispers…
the air heavy
with magnolia

 ***

last persimmon
the real estate agent
suggests a lower price

***

dimes and quarters
fall out of his pocket
perseids

***

Haiku published in:

The Heron’s Nest, Mayfly, Yuki Teikei Membership Anthology, bottle rockets, Haiku North America anthology, A Hundred Gourds, Mainichi Daily News, South by Southeast, Modern Haiku, Daily Haiku, Haiku Society of America Anthology, Frogpond, Riverbed Haiku 

© 2013 Deborah Kolodji