More From Michelle Mercer

Featured image for “Feels so right”

About Michelle Mercer


Michelle Mercer is a bestselling author/ghostwriter and was an NPR contributor for two decades. Michelle has lectured and reported on art, music, and culture in dozens of countries. Her MFA in Writing and Literature is from Bennington College, where she studied with Sven Birkerts and Phillip Lopate. She teaches and coaches nonfiction writing. Her Substack is Call & Response. https://michellemercer.substack.com/

Image

Support Rocky Mountain Reader


Rocky Mountain Reader depends on generous contributions from readers to support our operations. Please consider making a donation that you can afford — one-time, monthly or yearly. Donations are tax-deductible.

Newsletter Updates


Subscribing is free! To subscribe, sign up to receive our weekly newsletter that will provide previews and links to upcoming content, literary news items from around Colorado and more.

Briefly Noted


coming storm: haiku

Dave Reynolds
Red Moon Press, Winchester, VA
132 pages
Image

coming storm marks each month of a year in poems. Like Matsuo Basho, the traditional haiku master, Colorado Springs-based poet and teacher Dave Reynolds invokes images of the natural world and seasons. Beginning with January, he reflects upon snow laden scenes, deer in moonlight and impending storms. His family is often the subject. Coffee and spouse’s moods percolate; arguments pave paths like an avalanche. February speaks to resolutions and the pull of unbreakable habits. Yet those moments are erased in a blanket of white, their marks only visible once feet leave a Hansel and Gretel trail. Spring begins with reflections on the past and wordplay: “another year / another columbine shooting / up through the dirt.”  Here, Reynolds remembers April 20, 1999, and the Columbine High School mass shooting. He, too, is a high school educator, Chair of the English department at Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs. In his haiku, he educates his reader, remembering past losses masked in the colors of mountain flowers. Reynolds canters into hopeful summer: “the fog lifts / one by one / horses on the prairie.” He steps outside the indoor classroom to open space. Meadowlarks trill, dandelion seeds blow in the wind and fireflies glow like what once was. As summer fades, sometimes life does too. Reynolds learns by “letting go” those memories, just as he breaks with traditional haiku in both syllable count and topic. Dave Reynolds uses humor, sadness, nostalgia and love to animate his delicate haiku. He dedicates his collection to the women in his life, as well as haiku writers and readers—those that inspire him and keep the art form alive today. — Shelli Rottschafer