Lorraine Ellis Harr

Lorraine Ellis Harr (1912-2006) assumed editorship of Haiku Highlights in 1972, renaming the magazine Dragonfly. She published some 15 volumes of haiku, senryu, haibun, renga, and monoku, often under the pen name ”Tombo,” Japanese for dragonfly. She also published a controversial list of ”The Isn’ts of Haiku,” some of which are repeated in this letter.  Her book, Selected Senryu (J&C Transcripts, 1976), was one of the earliest English-language senryu-only publications.

L.E. Harr often sent along “how to write haiku” guides with her letters, pictured below.