Author: Sylvia Forges-Ryan

Sylvia Forges-Ryan is a former Editor of Frogpond, the international journal of the Haiku Society of America. Her poems have been published in many countries and in six continents. Writing in various Japanese forms, she has won many international prizes, including the Harold G. Henderson Award from the Haiku Society of America, the R.H. Blyth Award from the World Haiku Association, the Grand Prix from the Kyoto Museum for World Peace, the Azsacra Poetry Award from the Taj Mahal Review in India, and First Prizes in the Mainichi Times Contest in Tokyo, the California Ukiah Festival, and the Key West Robert Frost Haiku Competition. She has published three books: Take a Deep Breath, the Haiku Way to Inner Peace, co-authored with her husband, Edward R. Ryan, PhD, was cited by poet, editor, and translator Jane Reichhold as “the perfect haiku book,” and was given an Honorable Mention from the World Haiku Review. What Light There Is was described by Susumu Takiguchi, World Haiku Editor, as “One of the best books of haiku ever produced in English, a treasure.” In addition, the book was awarded a Distinguished Touchstone Award HM from the Haiku Foundation and has a Russian edition. Both books, along with her third book, Side by Side< Poems Prints, have been selected for permanent inclusion in the American Literature Collection of the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University.

Taking the only thing she could to her grave family secrets

Back from vacation— our finicky roses blooming better than ever

Summer afternoon a Bach sonata cools the air

Indian summer someone blowing on the embers

Summer romance a firefly flashes its green light

Urban sunrise the garbage truck brakes heave a sigh

Twilight the autumn hills give up their colors

Living with it in light and in shadow the garden buddha

Harvest moon their wedding rings tucked away one inside the other

Full moon how is it, my friend where you are

Spring fever dancing just for themselves girls in white dresses

Autumn afternoon we keep our distance in dappled light talking about the life we haven’t shared

All night the rattle at the iron gate the color of winter

Spring rain a sprinkle of arpeggios from the street musician

Lilies of the field — what the world calls doing nothing

Upset over news of refugees fleeing war and poverty I create one more wiping away the spider’s web (originally appeared in What Light There

Ten times ten thousand terrible things in this world and still I don’t want to leave it (from Dreams Wander On, Contemporary Poems of Death

slowly falling snow little by little I learn to forget you (originally appeared in White Lotus, Issue 6, 2008)

Autumn chill the sound of the wind on its way to the sea

First day of autumn a sunflower turns back toward earth have I used it well this life . . .

how do they manage migrating geese taking only their shadows