Crazy Bitches

Full-length collection by Roberta Beary, Touchstone Award-winning poet and long-time haibun editor at Modern Haiku, which includes 80 haibun selected from poems written over a 20-year period, 2004 through 2024. Four paintings by contemporary American artist Kevin Beary also appear in this collection, including Widow with Shawl on the cover. With Lew Watts and Rich Youmans, Roberta Beary is co-author of Haibun: A Writer's Guide (2023).

Review :
[1] I've come to expect nothing less than perfection from Roberta Beary, and Crazy Bitches: selected haibun does not disappoint. Beary is a master of the form and her haibun are deceptively simple; it takes the highest level of craft to make them seem so. Beary tackles the hard issues, as in "On a Day Like Any Other," where the small, pink-haired boy is ambushed by bullies, captured on video. "A footprint marks his face. His white shirt is stained with blood. But the Blessed Heart insignia on his backpack is untouched." Beary's sense of irony is unmatched. I love this book. --Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of Triggered, Brazen, Junkie Wife, and Erotic [2] Beary gets to the root of many different traumas, which are made more accessible thanks to her mastery of the power of the haibun form. The subtlety of their haiku allows ample space for readers to thread the needle of the story themselves. That balance of interweaving a resonant narrative while allowing readers to have the satisfaction of making the connections themselves is perhaps the most difficult tightrope walk of all--when it comes to crafting excellent poetry. Beary manages an impressive feat--by nestling the audience right alongside the various voices of the poems as the haiku allow for the space for the readers to make their own connections. --Katie Dozier, creator of The Poetry Space_, author of Watering Can, co-author of Hot Pink Moon: A Crown of Haibun, and associate editor for Rattle [3] This collection of eighty haibun is a triumph. Those new to haibun are in for a treat, and those experienced with Roberta Beary's work will gasp and smile with each turned page. Yes, Beary, longtime haibun editor at Modern Haiku, writes brilliant haibun. They have famously written about "The Holy Trinity of Haibun" a title that draws the reader in, prose that is short and engaging, and (one or more) haiku that reflect or expand the prose. Her haibun are exemplars of this, and they sizzle. And there's more. Innovative of form, approach, even narrative type, Beary's haibun effortlessly shift from lyrical to the tightest, bitingly sparse flash. And all this through twenty years of acerbic, ironic, candid, and forceful writing with a voice that's consistent and unique. --Lew Watts, haibun co-editor for Frogpond, and author of Eira, a memoir in haibun form and recipient in 2023 of a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award