About Shimi
Mark Brooks (Shimi)
creator of haijinx
editor-in-chief
editor, South America, Europe, Asia
Mark Brooks lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and two boys.
Mark's poetry has been published and anthologized worldwide, including several editions of the
Red Moon Anthology. His haiku and renku have often been honored with awards, including the Mainichi Haiku Contest (first prize), the BHS's James W. Hackett International Haiku Award (highly commended), the HSA's Bernard Lionel Einbond Renku Competition (multiple firsts and seconds), the Snapshots Haiku Calendar Competition (winner and runners-up), and the Penumbra Haiku Competition (finalists).
Mark's first manuscript won The Snapshot Press Haiku Collection Competition in 2002 and was published as
A Handful of Pebbles (Snapshot Press, 2006).
Mark has given talks on haiku and renku in throughout the United States and his presentation on kigo to the HSA quarterly meeting ("The Poetics of Kigo", Long Beach, December 2001) was well-received that he was invited to repeat it at the next national meeting ("An Approach to Kigo", New Orleans, September 2002). This talk will be published later this year.
Mark created the popular haikai journal
haijinx in 2001, as well as Mark's Haiku Place (2000, haikai link depot later the hiho project) and the
haijinx weekly wire (2002, haikai news feed). All of these projects suspended activity from 2003 through 2009.
In 2010, Mark relaunched the
haijinx site on the lunar new year, quickly adding the haikai twitter feed
@haijinx. This new version of the
haijinx wire provides haikai news and deadline reminders to the Twitter public as well as to subscribers through a variety of delivery options.
On March 20, 2010, the equinox, Alan, Carmen Sterba, and Mark Brooks announced the return of
haijinx with the
haijinx quarterly. The first regular weekly, monthly, and bi-monthly columns appear on the new
haijinx site in April 2010, including Mark's weekly column of Bashô in translation:
firefly in the brambles.
Mark has used the haigô Shimi (silverfish) for haikai since 2004. Earlier haiku and renku are signed Mark Brooks.
firefly in the brambles: Bashô and his translators
Haiku Registry Profile | A Handful of Pebbles | Selected Haiku
Interview @ Sol Magazine (2001)
Three Questions @ Blogging Along Tobacco Road (2010)
Website: http://www.haijinx.org
Shimi has written
140 articles so far, you can find them below.
Written by Shimi
semi-recently published a review of Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan, see Modern Haiku (Autumn 2009).
February 14, 2010
Written by Shimi
you can order copies of my prize-winning haiku collection, A Handful of Pebbles, from Snapshot Press.
February 14, 2010
Written by Shimi
the haikai blog portion of haijinx returns in March 2010 occasional comments from a relapsed poet with info on contests & pubs for now, try my new haikai twitter @haijinx Shimi (Mark Brooks) lunar new year year of the tiger February 14, 2010
February 14, 2010
Written by Shimi
haiku originally published in World Haiku Review I:1 (2001) Takashi’s Corner: “TOKUSEN” (Poems of Special Merit) republished as haiga in haijinx II:1 (2002) included in Lee Gurga’s Haiku: A Poet’s Guide (2003) collected in A Handful of Pebbles (2006) click for the Haiku Registry profile of Shimi (Mark Brooks)
February 14, 2010
and originally from 
