Long on the cutting edge of English-language haiku, Red Moon Press has — let’s be honest — been a bit behind when it comes to having an internet presence. For years, it has been borrowing a few modest webpages from HaikuWorld.org. Last night, however, RMP’s publisher Jim Kacian [f/k/a‘s very first Honored Guest Poet] announced the launching of the new Red Moon Press website (giving much credit to web designer Dave Russo). Here’s what Jim had to say about Red Moon’s new internet home:
“the site will incorporate more features as time goes along, but for the
moment it is a site where all current red moon press products are
available, and which offers some information about us and our mission.”
The website offers a frequently-updated listing of Red Moon’s Best Sellers and also lets visitors/readers leave reviews of RMP books. The About page gives a brief history of RMP, which has published over 60 volumes, many of which have been featured here at f/k/a.
big sky: rma 2006
If you haven’t checked out the Red Moon Press catalog lately, give it a close look. For example, for an introduction to the best haiku written in English, consider the annual Red Moon Anthology series, which has been winning major awards for a decade. [If the website had a Wish List feature, I’d be letting Mama G., know she can order me a copy of big sky: the red moon anthology 2006 now, for delivery in February, 2007. Like former rma volumes, big sky will have “200 works of haiku, haibun, renku, criticism and analysis.”]
I’m pleased to see that RMP has reissued Presents of Mind, Jim Kacian’s own full-length book of haiku. This new edition has “Japanese translations by the Kon Nichi Haiku Circle, the first time such serious, scholarly treatment has been afforded a book of English-language haiku.”
Here are some of my favorite haiku from Presents of Mind: 
the cold night
comes out of the stones
all morning
noiseless wind
icicles pend
from the bell clappers
drowned moth
the wax hardens
around it
birds appear
and disppear
tilting axis
afternoon moon
the blue of the sky
right through it
weed stalks
holding up
snow flowers
. . . by Jim Kacian, Presents of Mind (1996) 