Alexis Rotella
In 2019 Alexis Rotella was named honorary curator in the American Haiku Archives. Her MeToo anthology, UnSealing Our Secrets, was awarded is Touchstone Book Award (2018). Alexis has been writing haiku and related forms for 45 years, served as president of the Haiku Society of America (Japan House, 1984). She was editor and founder of several journals including Prune Juice Senryu Journal (now in its 10th year). Also a digital artist, her work has been exhibited in many venues including galleries in Porto, Portugal and Milan, Italy.
Makoto Ueda, Professor of Japanese and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University writes:
“I have often wondered why senryu has not become as popular as haiku in America. Wit and humor have always been an essential part of American literature; the Americans in general have a more independent, critical mind than the Japanese. Alexis Rotella has been one of the few Americans who has experimented with this traditional Japanese verse form, publishing a good number of them in various magazines. Collected herein, these mini-poems explore the poetic potential of senryu in English to the full, inviting others to smile, grin or laugh with her and perhaps, to reflect on their own lives and to write a senryu or two.”
Alexis Rotella is a recipient of a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2018 for her volume Unsealing Our Secrets: A Short Poem Anthology About Sexual Abuse. Alexis Rotella, Curator/Editor.

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