Alan Pizzarelli


Alan Pizzarelli is an American poet, songwriter, and musician. He was born of an Italian-American family in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in the first ward’s Little Italy. He is a major figure in English-language haiku and Senryū.

Poetry

Pizzarelli has performed numerous poetry readings and has taught poetry workshops in the US and internationally, including the International School of Lausanne, Switzerland, The Nick Virgilio Haiku Association in Camden, New Jersey, and The Newark Museum. From 2005 until 2009 he was senryū editor for the online poetry journal, Simply Haiku. He is co-producer and co-host of the podcast, Haiku Chronicles.
Tom Lynch writes of the following Pizzarelli haiku:
"This last poem is as profound and literal an evocation of sabi, the incessant rusting of existence wrought by time, as exists in Western haiku."

Works

Books

Pizzarelli is the author of 12 books of haiku and related poems including:
  • The Flea Circus
  • City Beat
  • Senryū Magazine
  • The Windswept Corner
  • Frozen Socks
  • ''Mind Zaps''

    Anthologies

Pizzarelli's poetry has appeared in many anthologies and books including:
  • The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms
  • The Haiku Handbook, William J. Higginson and Penny Harter
  • Haiku, edited by Czesław Miłosz
  • Haiku Moment, edited by Bruce Ross
  • Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac, edited by W.J. Higginson
  • Literature of Nature, An International Sourcebook, edited by Patrick D. Murphy
  • The Haiku Anthology, 3rd edition, edited by Cor van den Heuvel
  • Stone Bench in an Empty Park, edited by Paul B. Janeczko
  • The New Pond, edited by Emiko Miyashita
  • How to Haiku, edited by Bruce Ross
  • Erotic Haiku, edited by Hiroaki Sato
  • Kiss and Part, edited by Gail White
  • Baseball Haiku, edited by Cor van den Heuvel
  • Haiku on 42nd St.: A Celebration of Urban Poetry and Art
Pizzarelli was a consultant for Jack Kerouac’s Book of Haikus, edited by Regina Weinreich

Periodicals

Pizzarelli's poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications, such as:
  • Longshot
  • Simply Haiku: Essays, Modern Senryu and The Serious Side of Senryu
  • The New York Times
  • Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

    Electronic media

Pizzarelli has been featured on podcasts, radio, video and film: