Dear Beth Griffenhagen

Hi Beth — congratulations on your wonderful book Haiku for the Single Girl!

You’ve done a really nice job of creating a simple yet sublime, playful yet honest, little volume that is a joy to hold and read.

I am the host (brand new host actually) of a virtual world event called Haiku Sculpting. Each week we put out 4 haiku, and artists have an hour to create a virtual sculpture inspired by their choice of the haiku. In the past we’ve often used ancient Japanese haiku that contain moments of simple beauty. Even so, I wonder if the distance between us and these poems might make them a bit less accessible for some. I thought that trying somewhat more contemporary and more Western haiku would be a fun change. We’ve decided to let our virtual sculptors be inspired by your book for March.

Would you be willing to read 4 of them for us? Since it’s a virtual sculpture event, the time and place of your reading doesn’t matter of course. If you’d turn on YouTube “record now” and simply read any 4 haiku of your choice “to your laptop” and send us a URL, then the sculptors could view your video, pick one, and create a project.

Here are a few samples that were created yesterday: