This revised and expanded edition of Edward J. Rielly’s Abandoned Farmhouse features 17 poems in the title sequence, and an additional 49 haiku in four seasonal sections. The author trusts that readers will not see his farmhouse haiku as unrelentingly sad because, he says, writing these haiku has been at heart a joyous experience, even a celebration. About the Author Edward J. Rielly is a professor emeritus of English and former director of the writing and publishing program at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine. A widely published author, his books include a memoir of his childhood (Bread Pudding and Other Memories: A Boyhood on the Farm), children’s picture books, biographies, cultural histories, studies of baseball and football, and many collections of poetry. His haiku have appeared in several chapbooks and dozens of magazines since the 1970s. His Answers Instead: A Life in Haiku is the 2016 recipient of the Kanterman Memorial Award from the Haiku Society of America. He lives in Westbrook, Maine, with his wife, Jeanne.
From the Introduction
I grew up on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin between Darlington and Mineral Point, a dairy farm that my father operated with my mother, brothers, and sister. Many of the following haiku arose from that heritage-reflecting, I think, both the beauty and sadness of farm life. I prize my years on the farm. They have contributed more than I can measure to who I am and therefore to my writing.
Appreciations
Abandoned Farmhouse is a celebration in haiku of the indelible life that exists in a farmhouse and a testament to the breadth and depth of farm life. This essential haiku collection conveys the inextricable linkage of farm life to nature’s flow of seasons, day by day, chore by chore, illuminating a beautiful round of relationships. -Tom Clausen
Ed Rielly is a skilled and sensitive poet, as these carefully crafted haiku clearly show. The ‘Abandoned Farmhouse’ poems are poignant and deeply felt. Read and re-read these poems. Their meaning deepens and broadens. Listen to the quiet music of this gifted poet. -Elizabeth Searle Lamb
With a breath’s worth of words Ed Rielly brings the living moments of other places, other times, into the present. His haiku indeed act as ‘wallpaper peeling back / to my childhood.’ Ed Rielly has the technique, the eye, the heart of a master. -Carol Purington
