23 August 2004. For this entry, I've chosen a haiku from the autumn issue of Modern Haiku in order to do some teaching--or, more accurately, reveal a way I think about haiku. Its author is John Stevenson:

                                                            pressed
                                                            in a scrapbook
                                                            scentless lilacs

This, which is part of a short haibun about the loss of sexuality, is a pretty good haiku, but I would have made it:

                                                            the scrapbook's
                                                            pressed lilacs;
                                                            their scent faintly recalled

Okay, high-handed, and I probably twisted the haiku away from what its author wanted it to say, but I think I improved it as a stand-alone haiku. For one thing, the reader has to infer the lost scent; for another, the pay-off is delayed to the last syllable, rather than pretty much revealed shortly before that.