Pressing Matters: Haiku, Senryu and Haibun Poems

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"Pressing Matters: Haiku, Senryu and Haibun Poems," written between 2020 and 2022, responds to the coronavirus pandemic, accelerating changes in the natural environment due to climate change, and worldwide social unrest. Searching for answers to existential questions of loss and survival, the poems concern what it means to be human in a time of profound change and uncertainty. The haiku, senryu and haibun poems in Part I consider the increasing degradation of the natural environment due to systematic human intervention. Several haibun---poems that combine short prose and haiku---explore our dependence on nuclear energy and concentrated fossil fuels. Other haibun describe the whipsaw of droughts and deluges. Part II turns to the urgent social issues of economic disparity and insecurity, intolerance and racism, conflict and war. Part III concludes with poems about the COVID-19 pandemic, aging, illness, and death. "Pressing Matters" expresses gratitude for the gift of artistic expression and for the power of poetry and the visual arts to nudge out hearts and minds away from despair and complacency towards engagement and hope.