Self-portrait
Bona M. Santos (born Ilagan City, Isabela province, northern Philippines), American marine science researcher with a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman. Her scientific work in the Philippines focused on marine coastal resource management, protection, and conservation especially of tropical Sargassum (kelp) and seagrass beds. She currently works as operations manager of a real estate development company in Los Angeles, California. Santos is also a haiku poet, a member of the Haiku Society of America, the Southern California Haiku Study Group, and the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society. She was an invited guest poet at the 2022 YTHS Annual Spring Reading and has served as registrar for the group’s Haiku Retreat since 2021. Her work has been published in the leading print and online haiku journals as well as haiku-group anthologies. With Susan Burch she coauthored a chapbook, Not Your Kids‘ Nursery Rhyme Haiku (2022). Her “madku” (ironic senryu on contemporary social situations) were also featured in a Poetry Pea Podcast in 2024. Santos lives in Los Angeles.
Note: This is an abstract of a longer biographical article to come.