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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

 

Posted on 2 April 202627 March 2026Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 26.14 Comments on

Back from vacation—
our finicky roses
blooming better than ever

Posted on 13 October 202512 October 2025Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 25.21 Comment on

Summer afternoon
a Bach sonata
cools the air

 

Posted on 1 July 202524 June 2025Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 25.12 Comments on

Indian summer
someone blowing
on the embers

Posted on 8 October 20241 October 2024Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 24.23 Comments on

Summer romance
a firefly flashes
its green light

Posted on 28 June 202422 June 2024Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 24.13 Comments on

Urban sunrise
the garbage truck brakes
heave a sigh

 

Posted on 16 May 202411 May 2024Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 24.1Leave a comment on

Twilight
the autumn hills
give up their colors

Posted on 26 October 2022Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 22.21 Comment on

Living with it
in light and in shadow
the garden buddha

Posted on 30 June 20228 June 2022Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 22.11 Comment on
Harvest moon their wedding rings tucked away one inside the other
Posted on 20 October 202120 October 2021Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 21.22 Comments on

Full moon
how is it, my friend
where you are

Posted on 26 May 202118 April 2021Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 21.15 Comments on

Spring fever
dancing just for themselves
girls in white dresses

Posted on 26 March 202122 March 2021Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 21.12 Comments on

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

Posted on 26 July 201917 July 2019Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 19.15 Comments on

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

Posted on 3 May 201827 April 2018Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 18.18 Comments on

Spring rain
a sprinkle of arpeggios
from the street musician

 

Posted on 27 March 2018Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 18.16 Comments on

Lilies of the field —
what the world calls
doing nothing

Posted on 23 December 201616 September 2025Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 16.26 Comments on

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

Posted on 28 October 20168 October 2016Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 16.22 Comments on

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

Posted on 9 December 201513 March 2017Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 15.29 Comments on

slowly falling snow
little by little I learn
to forget you

 

 

 

(originally appeared in White Lotus, Issue 6, 2008)

Posted on 11 February 201523 June 2015Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 15.113 Comments on

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

Posted on 28 October 201427 October 2014Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 14.25 Comments on

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

Posted on 24 September 201415 September 2014Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 14.210 Comments on

how do they manage
migrating geese taking only
their shadows

Posted on 15 December 201113 November 2011Author Sylvia Forges-RyanCategories Issue 11.3Tags autumn, birds, journeys, travel8 Comments on
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