School's Out : Selected Haiku of Randy Brooks

School's Out is precisely what a selected works should be: a showcase of a substantial number of haiku from decades of work. It is a landmark collection and confirms that Randy Brooks is one of the foremost haiku poets in the English language:

two lines in the water . . .
not a word between
father and son

Includes 174 haiku, 65 never before published.

Randy Brooks, Assistant Professor of English, directs the writing major at Millikin University, a private university in Decatur, Illinois. He and his wife, Shirley Brooks, have been co-editors and publishers of Brooks Books, (formerly High/Coo Press) since 1976 and currently edit Mayfly a magazine featuring haiku.

One of Dr. Brooks' primary areas of academic research is the history of haiku as a genre of literature (especially haiku in English). Each haiku captures a moment of being alive and shares that moment as a gift to future readers, not forcing the poet's view upon the readers, but inviting them into the moment's feeling, as a fellow seeker on the journey of life. He is the coordinator of the Midwest Region of the Haiku Society of America, and organized the Global Haiku Festival at Millikin University in April, 2000.

He has won numerous awards for haiku including contests sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women, Penumbra