Haiku has changed.

eggplants & teardrops: a haiku collection takes haiku into the 2020s, radically updating classic haiku conventions from the days of poetry greats like Matsuo Bashō and touching on contemporary subjects never before seen in the form.

With a fresh, comedic style, Barry traces a life of social media, manga, and urban slang, looking at what it means to be broke, search for love in all the wrong places, and exist in a state of constant revision. In their impressive plurality, these poems are an expression of the next generation's most distressing, beautiful, and vulgar experiences, rendered through an ancient poetic tradition.

Many of the poems in this collection have been featured across English-language haiku's most respected magazines, and now they've been artfully arranged for the first time and accompanied by thirty bold line art illustrations.

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"A wonderfully hilarious collection. Barry has mastered the modern comedic form."

-- Jay Friedenberg, President, Haiku Society of America

"Witty and playful ... abstract and cerebral ... at other moments, personal, raw, and poignant. eggplants & teardrops offers us a fresh take on the daily experiences and anxieties of a new generation."

-- Jacqueline Pearce, Award-winning Haiku Poet and Editor