return of the original

In the spirit of patriotism that infuses the entire month of June leading up to the July 4 holiday, I set into my e pluribus haiku original copy (this one), revised it, and published a paperback version. I will probably be the only one to buy the paperback version, and that only because it has a new cover, and I want to have one of everything I publish.

The 565 haiku that are in it represent the original collection that took me many years to write, long before the days (roughly 2016-2018) when I would write a thousand a year. They weren't necessarily the best and some fell below standards that I held them to later - weak kigo, for example, or ambiguous. I tightened up on that stuff as I went along. But these were the most original attempts at getting my experiences into print.

Eventually I gave up on using haiku to document my amazing journey, and just wrote the whole thing out in prose. It was impossible to stick to the absolute truth using haiku and to some degree I found myself wanting that.

But as I went through the 565 that I had, I kind of relived the experience both of traveling and of writing. Nobody buys this haiku, or at least very few people do, but I owe it to the ones that do buy it, to make it as clean and interesting as possible. It's pretty intense stuff and I'm proud of it. I do let a few mistakes slip by every once in a while.

I also am taking out of circulation e pluribus haiku 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. These are not particularly helping me out there. Every once in a while someone will buy one or download one and I'm forced to explain what the whole series is about. That's why I figured I'd fix this one up, explain it once, and then leave it so that only good stuff is up there.

It's part of a general reorganization of all the haiku. If, for example, having createspace-made covers is the kiss of death, then I need to clear out the deadwood and put original covers on what I have left. 2016, 20-17, and 2018 are what I have left. And their covers needed work anyway. That's next on my radar. Happy fourth to everyone!