Guest Post by Ben Ditmars on his Book, Haiku in the Night

Hello, everyone! It’s Ben Ditmars again. Chris McQueeney has agreed to let me do another post on his amazing blog. It’s been a few months and I bet you wonder what I've been up to. No, it wasn't a safari. The closest I've got to wild animals was playing Oregon Trail and I’m partially responsible for the decline of the American buffalo because of it. What I have been up to is equally exciting. I have a new book out titled Haiku in the Night. It’s a collection of free-verse and traditional haiku. I had a vision, ladies and gentlemen, or conversely jezebels and hooligans.

I wanted to really explore haiku and show its versatility. You know, break down rules, stick it to the man? I think I succeeded in sticking it… in the most platonic way possible. I don’t think poets should be turned off of it because of its rules. It’s a beautiful form of observation and succinct emotion. Syllables are not near as important as the meaning behind them. I think this is true in the Japanese tradition as well as the American. My organization for the poems is four colors, an homage to Basho’s by season. Please, check it out or read a sample. For just pennies a day you can keep this poet off the streets. Maybe I'll even send you a drawing to prove they haven't sold me into prostitution. Here's a few favorites I'd like to share with you:

Twilight spins

Spider webs of hope

Lost to sight.

We are slaves

Bound to this

Wild West of love.

I swam inside you

Becoming waves and ripples

In your heart-shaped lake.

Smashwords

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Paperback

Createspace Paperback

Authorgraph (Get it signed!)