Frogpond, Vol. 48, Number 3, Autumn 2025

Honoured that this issue contains a lovely review of Random Blue Sparks by Allyson Whipple which can be accessed under the book's tab of this blog. Also featured in this issue are the results of the 2025 Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards in which Random Blue Sparks placed third. The judges' report can also be found under the book's tab of this blog.

Ginkgo Gold, Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2025

refugee train

small hands starfished

against the glass

1st Place

2024 Triveni Haiku Awards

 

Haiku Society of America, Merit Book Awards, 2025

Thrilled to have received 3rd Place in the Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards for 2025 (for books published in 2024) for Random Blue Sparks (Snapshot Press, 2024)

Judges' commentary:

"In Arctic Dreams the biologist Barry Lopez wrote that landscape shapes our imagination. Debbie Strange has lived in western Canada all her life where her sense of place has been finely honed; so too are her haiku that come from this lived experience. With amazingly precise and beautiful language Strange writes of the "undersong of a thrush," "the iridescent sound of morning," and the "grace notes" of a meadowlark. She writes of a landscape of coulees, auroras, and parhelions. The natural world comes alive in her haiku where we meet capelin, orcas, thunderbugs, scarlet tanagers, witches' butter, puffballs, trilliums, and almost-white tundra hares. Each treated with clear, yet surprisingly fresh language. You've probably met a woolly aphid or two in your backyard, but from the title poem ("dead orchard / the random blue sparks / of woolly aphids") you'll learn they sometimes come in blue. The book itself produced by Snapshot Press is a pleasure to hold and to read.

firelight knitting another length of silence

marsh reeds

we learn the secret

language of wind

(note: I have corrected a couple of errors in the H.S.A. website release of the commentary)

—Scott Mason & Patricia J. Machmiller

  

Hauling the Tide, Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2024

asperitas

my shape changing

with the wind

Fractured by Cattails, Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2023

frozen trough

I cup the warm breath

of my horse

1st Place

2018 Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest

Dawn Returns, Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2022

glassy lake

flocks of snow geese

pull up the moon

1st Place

2017 Autumn Moon Haiku Contest

 

Haiku Society of America Newsletter, Volume 37, Number 7, July 2022

My thanks to the HSA President, Jay Friedenberg, for choosing the following monoku for commentary:

assigned gender the 25,000 sexes of split-grill mushrooms

Kontinuum, Volume 1.1, 2021

Poets are often afraid of using their art to explore sensitive issues in politics and culture. This monoku does just that. There is a lot of current debate over how gender is determined, for example whether it is primarily biological in nature or more shaped by environment. Debbie Strange sets the stage with the first two words but what follows takes us on an interesting detour. It is the case that some fungi have many thousands of sexes. What then does this mean for people? Nature astounds us with its variety and suggests all sorts of possibilities. There is a hidden lesson in this lesson about the natural world.

 

Visiting the Wind, Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2021

rippling waves

you teach me how

to film the wind

Grand Prix

10th Setouchi-Matsuyama International Photo-Haiku Contest

Frogpond, Vol. 44, Number 3, Autumn 2021

wolf pack

our social glue

u n s t i c k s

This issue includes Kristen Lindquist's lovely review of The Language of Loss: Haiku & Tanka Conversations:

https://www.hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/2021-issue44-3/Strange-Review-Frogpond44-3.pdf

My thanks to Kristen for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and appreciative review! A transcript of her review may be accessed under this blog's tab for The Language of Loss.

This issue also includes Randy Brooks' wonderful review of A New Resonance 12:

https://www.hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/2021-issue44-3/Kacian-Review-NewResonance12-Frogpond44-3.pdf 

My thanks to Randy for the following excerpt regarding my work:

Debbie Strange is a master at setting a scene, then inviting the reader to settle in for a story. She doesn't provide the end of the story, but just enough to get us anticipating or imagining possibilities. We get the gist and feel the feeling of the tale:

porch swing

songs where we least

expect them

This issue also includes the results of the 2021 Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards for books published in 2020. My thanks to the judges, Ce Rosenow and Bryan Rickert for awarding The Language of Loss: Haiku & Tanka Conversations an honourable mention in this contest! Their comments follow:

True to its name, Debbie Strange's The Language of Loss explores the many facets of loss and survival using both haiku and tanka. One haiku and one tanka are paired beautifully on every page. Never predictable and always revealing, this book delivers consistent quality from start to finish.

Haiku Society of America, Merit Book Awards, 2021

Thrilled to have received an Honourable Mention in the Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards for 2021 (for books published in 2020) for The Language of Loss: Haiku & Tanka Conversations (Sable Books 2020).

https://sablebooks.org/the-language-of-loss/

My thanks to judges Ce Rosenow and Bryan Rickert for their lovely comments:

"True to its name, The Language of Loss explores the many facets of loss and survival using both haiku and tanka. One haiku and one tanka are paired beautifully on every page. Never predictable and always revealing, this book delivers consistent quality from start to finish."

This book was also the winner of the 2019 Sable Books International Women's Haiku Book Contest, judged by Roberta Beary, esteemed author of The Unworn Necklace and Deflection.

 

Bundled Wildflowers, Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2020

canyon fog

this invisible rift

between us

 

A Moment's Longing, Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2019

first braces . . .
a puffin's beak fringed
with silver

Four Hundred and Two Snails, Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2018

starflowers
light the woodland . . .
we find our way

Winner (Month of May)
2017 Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar Competition

On Down the Road, Haiku Society of America, Members' Anthology 2017

the whistle
of a wood duck . . .
her last breath


Honourable Mention
Betty Drevniok Award 2015

Full of Moonlight, Haiku Society of America, Members' Anthology 2016

ice fog
everything familiar
unfamiliar


3rd Place, Shintai Haiku
World Haiku Review
January 2016

Haiku Society of America, Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest, 2015

stone cairns
a faded cap drifts
downriver


1st Place
2015 Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest

A Splash of Water, Haiku Society of America, Members' Anthology 2015

water lily
the way you close
your hands to pray


World Haiku Association
122nd Haiga Contest 2014