The Silence Between Us: Selected Haiku of Wally Swist

Brooks Books is pleased to publish The Silence Between Us: Selected Haiku of Wally Swist. Wally Swist has been an active contributor to the American haiku community since the 1970s, publishing haiku in numerous haiku magazines and serving as book review editor for Modern Haiku magazine from 1989 until 1997. Several chapbooks of his haiku have been published over the last fifteen years, and he has four books of lyric or narrative poetry in print. His haiku have been included in several major haiku anthologies and published in many magazines, so it is with great pleasure that Brooks Books publishes a gathering of Wally Swist's best haiku into this collection, The Silence Between Us. Special thanks are due to Lee Gurga, editor of Modern Haiku magazine, who helped Wally review his published work and select haiku for inclusion in this collection. We then reconsidered the manuscript selection and added haiku. Wally has carefully arranged the order of the haiku so that the reader enjoys a careful slow read, without jarring or unfortunate juxtapositions of haiku. Wally Swist is a master of nature haiku, and he brings a certain reserved New England understatement to his work. It is often the things unsaid, the silences between the images, that make all the difference in his work. We are sure you will enjoy this journey into the “silence” as you read and savor each haiku in this book. —Randy & Shirley Brooks