Today we’re sharing the first poetry contribution to our new online series,  Instincts: Asian Speculative Poetry. (‘Instincts’ for short).

Haikus are wonderful expressions of thought and beauty: adding speculative elements is especially difficult in this form, so I love the creativity of this piece. And if you’re into haiku, you’ll get the frog reference…

A Haiku (Untitled)

By Stewart C. Baker

Basho’s death day

the neural network stops

to watch the frogs

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Stewart C Baker is an academic librarian, speculative fiction writer and poet, web editor for The Heron’s Nest, and editor-in-chief of sub-Q Magazine. Stewart was born in England, has lived in South Carolina, Japan, and California, and currently lives in Oregon with his family­­—although if anyone asks, he’ll usually say he’s from the Internet. You can find him online at https://infomancy.net

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 Stewart’s work in The Insignia Series Anthologies:

‘Love and Relativity’ (Insignia: Asian Science Fiction, July 2018)

‘Raising Words’ (Insignia: Asian Birds & Beasts, Aug 2018)

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If you’re inspired by Stewart’s words and want to give Asian speculative poetry a go, check out our submission details here.

We also have an open anthology submission call for 100-word (drabbles) Japanese Fantasy stories.

We’d love to read your work!

Have a great week,

~Kelly~

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*Frog image by Samuel Giacomelli on Unsplash