3. Rowan Beckett Minor ~ the taste of words

confluence is a community founded to create new connections within and through haiku. We strive to inspire a deeper level of engagement and showcase the work of poets on the forefront of the form. By consistently pushing the boundaries of what we expect to read and encouraging other poets to do the same, our second Fellow has forged a heretofore uncharted path in contemporary haiku. In presenting us with crisp, evocative poems that sing themes such as sex, violence, politics, gender identity, climate change, and so much more, Rowan Beckett Minor has created space for content that was previously viewed as too polarizing and unpretty for haiku. To read Minor’s work is to be right there in the moment. We emerge different. Closer to the heart. And like all true leaders, they invite us to realize that we have a story of our own to tell.

-Aidan Castle, confluence co-editor

bloody tongue

the taste of words

I refuse to say

Failed Haiku 17

cat scratch

another lie

about my scars

Prune Juice 22

erasing the stigma

I clean the dirt

from under my nails

Failed Haiku 34

summer the heat of his punch

Haiku Dialogue: monoku, August 21, 2019

exposing the stamen fuckboi

ant ant ant ant ant, 2020

netflix and the chill of his touch

Red Flags, 2020, Title IX Press

small town gossip

the preacher’s wife tells me

I’m dirty

Recycled Virgin, 2020, HUMAN/KIND Press

day moon

she prays away

my gay

Failed Haiku 58

binge eating a glutton for punishment

Failed Haiku 61

uprooting the racism family tree

Failed Haiku 62

honky-tonk

I wear my favorite

goth boots

Failed Haiku 68

karaoke bar—

the whiteness of my

Baby Got Back

Failed Haiku 68

speaking in tongues covfefe

The Bamboo Hut No. 2, 2021

the last to know

who I went home with

white girl wasted

Hot Girl Haiku 2021, Cuttlefish Books

genderless all my life in a whale’s carcass

Whiptail 6

by the hands of a cop corpse flower

Five Fleas, February 2023

how much am I worth endless stars

Frogpond, 46:2

pre-existing a lyric shifts the blue into

2023 Trailblazer Contest: Haiku, Long List

still born inside the after-black an ounce of moon

2023 Trailblazer Contest: Haiku, Winner

the rain heavy again considering sex work

Tsuri-doro 17

in recovery. . .

violet roots

outgrowing their jar

Tsuri-doro 17

inflation fading Barbie’s dreamhouse

Kingfisher 8

tree rings

this economy

ever failing

Modern Haiku 55

colonizing the half-mouth of a redwood’s hollow

Akitsu Quarterly Fall/Winter 2024

inkblots

the therapist finds

a darker shade of me

Mayfly 77

from swallow to tail a ghost town hosts the body before

2023 Trailblazer Contest: Tanka, Winner

Hot Girl Summer

Popping Xanax bars, snorting Morphine, chugging Johnny Bootleggers in the bathtub. When the guy I was fucking found fresh cuts on the inside of my ankle, he just handed me another pill.

more wild

than ever. . .

poppies

Impspired, June 21, 2021

In order to understand contemporary Haiku, we must look at the history and evolution of the form. I spend most of my time reading whatever books I can get my hands on—anthologies, individual collections, and especially “how to” guides like Higginson’s The Haiku Handbook and The Japanese Haiku by Yasuda. I also read a lot about the history and translations of Haiku and other Japanese literature, such as books by Donald Keene and Mokoto Ueda. These have given me a rich understanding of Japanese short forms and a solid foundation for writing Haiku in English.

I have always agreed with Basho’s philosophy that “there is no topic unsuitable for Hokku” (or Haiku) and I hold to his practice that these poems should come from an authentic moment, no matter the subject. To me, poetry is a moment in life amplified and despite what some may think, each and every poem of mine is rooted in a true moment. When writing Haiku (and Senryu), I aim to put readers in my shoes. The goal is never to tell my audience how to feel, but to utilize Haiku/Senryu craft tools such as kigo, kire, toriawase, juxtaposition, wordplay, etc., to help them explore the depths of whatever emotion I felt during the specific moment in my poem. It is techniques like this that contribute to creating empathy, even between those who have lived the most opposite lives. When we, as a society, have an abundance of empathy, it becomes much easier to understand one another’s perspectives, regardless of relatability.

When used correctly, I believe that Haiku and Senryu can create systemic and societal change for the better. We all live different lives depending on age, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality, and culture, and that originality can easily be amplified through our individual poetic voices. Religion, war, poverty, sex, climate change, equality, human rights, etc. all have a place in Haiku and Senryu. But, this also means that we cannot appropriate topical poetry for the sake of social consciousness, so that the poems don’t come off as awkward or insincere. True Haiku should come from a place of consistent awareness. It should come from fire in your belly and the very breath in your lungs. And when you allow Haiku to come from that place, your work can become not just Modern, but Revolutionary.

Rowan Beckett Minor (they/them) is a disabled Melungeon writer, editor, and activist from Prince, WV who currently resides in Cleveland, OH. They are founder and editor of #FemkuMag and have poems featured in numerous international journals and anthologies, including Haiku 2024 (Modern Haiku Press) and A New Resonance 12 (Red Moon Press). Rowan is also the recipient of several awards, including three winning poems in the 2023 Trailblazer Contest. They are honored to have given presentations for the Haiku North America Conference (2019, 2021) and currently serves as Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America. Rowan has authored six chapbooks of haiku: Radical Women, inkblots, Red Flags, The New Norm, Recycled Virgin, and Hot Girl Haiku, and is currently working on their first full-length collection.

Vandana Parashar

I have known Rowan for many years and the paramount reason I wanted to join the #FemkuMag team was my deep admiration of their work. As is evident from the poems that have been featured here, their work is raw, visceral and resolutely honest. As they have said in their essay true haiku should come from ” fire in your belly and the very breath in your lungs”, they follow it to the word. Their poems, with their stark language and honest imagery, carry a strong undertone of resilience and rebellion in the face of trauma, identity and constant societal judgement.

Violence in intimate relationships is a recurring theme in their poems.

summer the heat of his punch

The choice of words in this 6-word senryu packs a punch. The harshness and abruptness of the act leave the readers reeling with the effect. The use of  “summer” and “heat” in this minimalist senryu conveys the feeling of suffocation and resignation as if such experiences are commonplace for the poet.

The theme of grappling with the societal norms about sexuality and gender identity also forms a major part of their work.

day moon

she prays away 

my gay

I picture “she” as the mother, who for her reasons, can’t accept the child as they are. For her, the child being gay is unnatural and unsavoury. How traumatising it must be for the child to be not understood and scorned by their mother!

genderless all my life in a whale’s carcass

This extremely sensitive and sad senryu makes the reader feel the isolation and sense of being entrapped in a body that doesn’t align with one’s true gender identity. 

Rowan has a sharp, critical take on socially relevant issues. They write about racism, capitalism and prejudices. Rowan has always been very vocal about mental health struggles. Their haibun portrays the cycle of substance abuse and self-harm and how their emotional pain is neither understood nor addressed. True to their belief that “ when we, as a society, have an abundance of empathy, it becomes much easier to understand one another’s perspectives, regardless of relatability.”, they sometimes use uncomfortable imagery to confront the readers with the brutal reality of people dealing with violence, mental health issues, sexual identity and various biases. Rowan refuses to be silenced about the experiences which are often buried beneath shame and stigma. Theirs is a voice that needs to be heard, absorbed and assimilated.

Daniel Shank Cruz

Rowan Beckett Minor’s revolutionary poetry is a tremendous inspiration for my own because of how incisively their poems examine a gamut of social issues without sacrificing aesthetic quality. Consider how the well-chosen natural images in two poems help amplify the poems’ political content. In “the rain heavy again considering sex work,” rain’s frequent association with sadness prepares us for the poem’s primary focus, “sex work,” and its relationship to economic exploitation. The poem calls readers to think about the need for more legal protections for sex workers, and more financial stability for all workers. This critique is also present in “tree rings / this economy / ever failing,” which uses its first line’s natural image in an unexpected way by rejecting tree rings’ usual association with aging in favor of a statement about deforestation, about capitalism’s exploitation of nature.

The economic concerns of the first two poems also occur in the senryu “inflation fading Barbie’s dreamhouse.” In addition to the poem’s documentation of how inflation makes it harder to achieve one’s material “dreams”—this word choice includes a repudiation of the “American Dream”—the reference to a plastic toy reminds us how our over-dependence on products of fossil fuels is killing the planet. Although these poems may seem bleak, they also imply that a better world is possible and urge us to seek it.

Nicky Gutierrez

Rowan Beckett Minor’s poetry does not shy away from what is considered “inappropriate topics.” In following the Japanese haiku masters, they write from their perspective a host of issues that many other poets do not engage with such as violence, politics, mental health, and sexuality. These things were not evaded in the masters’ times, and Minor reminds the reader that they should not be looked away from now. Minor does not write their poems to shock people but as an expression of the authentic self. Minor’s poetry is authentic and genuine making them powerful reads. In their sincerity, these poems force the reader to stop and engage the topic. Through word play and juxtaposition, Minor brings traditional images together with images that some would consider “inappropriate.” In Minor’s haiku, those boundaries are porous which allows the reader to see the connection between them to better understand the emotional weight that Minor is conveying through their work. Grounding their work in a real haiku moment, Minor brings an awareness to the reader of the “other” and invites them to enter into a perspective that they might have never known about or needed to hear.

Thank you so much for reading our second issue! We invite you to continue the conversation by using the "comment" button below to share your thoughts. Our next issue drops at the end of November, and will spotlight the voice of another fabulous Fellow!