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All cyclical things have high points and low points, the high point very high, then when people decide it's not cool, down it goes I guess. Low, very low, nada, nothing. I was so depressed about marketing haiku that I about gave up.

But it was September 11, not only that, but the twenty-fifth anniversary of it, and one of my best haiku books is a tiny little volume documenting it. How could I do nothing? It was losing its rating altogether in the US because nobody was reading it. So I put it out there, still nothing, put it out there again. One Indian writer, a friend of mine, was deeply moved by it. A British writer friend tried it. But still basically nothing from the US. Haiku is OUT, I concluded.

Finally, toward the end of September, somebody in the US read it. Finally...this means that it will have a rating for at least a year, until 9-11 next year, and in that time maybe I can get somebody to read it, or even buy it. It's an interesting thing all year around, it's kind of an exasperating thing to be at such desperate straits, as to beg people to read it.

One of the few books with its title a haiku: