contemporary haibun volume 21: edited by Rich Youmans and the CH Staff

Description

contemporary haibun is a series dedicated to the best haibun and haiga published each year in English around the world. ch21 features 88 haibun and 32 full-color haiga.

“contemporary haibun has stood alone, for more than a decade, as the chief vehicle and bulwark of the burgeoning haibun movement in English. Without the vanguard role of this annual anthology, one might reasonably inquire how — and perhaps if — haibun would have survived.”
— Jeffrey Woodward
Editor, Haibun Today

Lucky

Lucky wants to do it. Birdy does too. We’re in the boys’ bogs, Lucky swinging from the frame of the cubicle door. The priest’s just asked if we’d like to be altar servers, and Sir made out it was an honour, an expectation even, like a rite of passage. Birdy’s by the pissers, his shirt still sticking through his open fly. I’m by the sink, just far enough away not to get my face shoved into the manky tap. The water is warm and tastes disgusting. The sense of guilt weighs heavily, but I tell Lucky and Birdy that I’m gonna say no.

    the heat of 45 summers what we know now

                     — John Barlow

The Pale of Barn Ghosts

Shadows
and wet branches
lean
over the house;
wood smoke
clings
to the lane
as the silo
sags — into dusk.
Nan mixes wet
and dry
along with table
scraps;
stirs with a wooden
spoon,
then carries the bowl
through
the screen door —
where she bangs
a rhythm
against the glass,
Glenn G. Coats
The Pale of Barn Ghosts
squints
at the hillside
as leaves
shutter and move
like creeks
down — through rocks
and trees.
Circles
surround the food
while
the weakest
and youngest
are pushed
to the back
where they wait
for
what’s left.

     something scratching a way inside winter’s night

                     — Glenn G. Coats

To Have

Escaping city poverty, my mother made her way to the southern state where she was born, gripping us like puppies. I was thrust into the small local high school with a Spanish teacher who had a southern drawl. The first verb we learned to conjugate was tener — I have, we have, they have, tengo, tenemos, tienen. Her accent, the only foreignness I knew. I missed my Spanish-speaking neighbors and their scrumptious pupusas back when life was mostly have nots — spending money, a car, a man to put gas into a car. All the things I possess now without a mother to thank and a father to shame.

     new wisteria
     when to hang on
     when to let go

                    — Crystal Simone Smith

DemoGraphics

Their faces are featureless — no nose, no eyes, no bones — only a smooth eggshaped skull to hint at humanity. The bodies are uniformly slender, with identical tapering fingers. They betray no particular gender. All are hi-gloss white. Dressed for a heartland winter, about half the mannequins are posed one arm akimbo, hand-on hip, a little assertive. The other hand is deep in a pocket, as if reaching for something — a phone, a credit card, a pistol perhaps. It is America, after all, and the other half are posed to bolt.

     Black Friday
     a family in camouflage
     in the check-out line

                    — Susan Yavaniski

ISBN: 978-1-958408-86-5
Pages: 214
Size: 5.25″ x 8.25″
Binding: perfect softbound
Year Published: 2026