When the barbedwire slipped in

Editor’s preface: when the barbed wire slipped in In 2014 Joakim Becker attended a workshop I was delivering in Sweden about haiku. I focussed on the 5-7-5 syllable structure. In 2017 I attended a haiku workshop in Sweden delivered by Anna Maris. Anna’s suggestion that we should not get distracted by syllable count, but that we should concentrate upon forming haiku as a poem that could be read in one breath, was a revelation to me in helping understand the form. Within the context of that philosophy, one may describe many of Becker’s poems as truly haiku-esque. Consider the breath, not only the delivery but also the impact. So many poems in this collection will either make you guffaw or gasp, sucker-punches hidden in jokes and puns.