Ever wondered what to do with all those pages and pages of haiku you’ve got just sitting around on your hard drive? Of course you have. It’s a question we all have to face at some point in our lives, so here’s a few quick resources and tips to help you get your haiku published online for everyone to bask in the glory you’ve always known they deserved.
People still write haiku? Seriously?
Yes – a lot more than you’d think. Unfortunately, when most people think of haiku these days, all that comes to mind are those stuffy, neat little 5-7-5 syllable nuggets of greeting card fluff our 4th grade teachers made us write about leaves falling and our cats’ favorite spots to nap. But haiku can actually be a very deceptive and powerful art form – its strict emphases on simplicity, harmony, and finding profound meaning in the tiny, subtle moments and sensations of everyday life encourage writers to look at the world from a totally different perspective than most modern Westerners are used to these days. The tight form of the poems forces writers to focus carefully on the economy of their words, and can be a great exercise in reflection and contemplation in a way few other types of writing can.
Alright already, so how do I get them published?
Once you’ve got some written and you’re curious to see if they might be publishing-material, there’s a number of great resources online to help you take that next step. There are always thousands of literary magazines and journals of all different kinds floating around out there, some that cater to very specific things, some that are more general, and everything in between. Many lit mags accept both poetry and prose of all kinds, even haiku, in some cases, depending on the publication. While it’s pretty rare to see single haikus published all by themselves in most general interest journals, I have seen many cases of haiku getting published in a series – usually at least 3-5 – often a string of several haiku that relate to one another by evoking common themes or emotions, rather than just a few unrelated poems strung together with no apparent connection. The list of possible open/general literary magazines for this kind of thing is seemingly endless, and not even worth bothering trying to list here, but there are many simple, powerful, and free tools on the web for helping sort through them and pick out ones that might work for you. One of the best I’ve seen so far is http://www.duotrope.com/ – an easily-searchable database of literary magazines with detailed features for narrowing down your search – this site is an indispensible tool for any creative writer trying to get published, period.
However, your odds of getting haikus published are still probably going to be pretty slim with many of these journals, especially compared with the effort of narrowing down which ones look promising and submitting to each one individually. It’s not a lost cause, and maybe worth the effort, but your best bet is to try one of these specialized, haiku-only publications first:
-The Heron’s Nest: a quarterly publication offered online and in print, they accept haiku submissions year-round (5-15 at a time recommended).
-Daily Haiku – Daily Haiku is a high-quality publication that prides itself on promoting “contemporary, experimental, and traditional styles to push the boundaries of English-language haiku.” One haiku per day is published on dailyhaiku.org, and one long-form print edition is published per year. Accepted contributors are organized into “contributing teams” that showcase six authors writing in “cycles” on a rotating six-month time table, so submissions are only accepted during March and September.
-Haiku Heaven – a haiku magazine under Skyline Publications, this is another great quarterly to submit material to. Their submission guidelines are very flexible, and they encourage both traditional and experimental forms from both new and established writers. 10-15 poems per submission requested.
-Simply Haiku – yet another quarterly, Simply Haiku focuses on more traditional forms and styles, but showcases all different kinds of Japanese poetry, including tanka, senryu, and haibun. 10-25 poems requested per submission for haiku.
-The Mainichi Daily News – a Japanese daily which includes a special haiku column, with a new poem published every day. Nature-themes are encouraged, but not required.
