LORRAINE ELLIS HARR

Lorraine Ellis Harr (born Opal Lorraine Ellis, October 31, 1912, Sullivan, Illinois, U.S.A.; died March 3, 2006, Portland, Oregon; haigō Tombō), American grade school teacher and haiku poet, editor, and publisher. She was the author of 15 books, primarily of haiku and related forms, founder of the Western World Haiku Society, and founder and long-time editor of the haiku journal Dragonfly. Harr last lived in Portland, Oregon.

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EARLY YEARS

Lorraine Ellis Harr was the youngest of three girls born to Myrtle Hickman Ellis and Eugene Alonzo “Lon” Ellis. Her father left their family when she was three, and he later died in Illinois after an operation for appendicitis. Harr’s mother moved the family from Missouri to Cooperstown, North Dakota, where they lived for several years. When Harr was nine, they moved to Portland, Oregon. Her mother’s sister and brother-in-law lived in the West, and the brother-in-law promised Lorraine’s mother a job if she moved to Portland. They drove across the country in an open Model A Ford with only $20 in cash, and Harr’s mother found work at a dry cleaners because of her tailoring experience.

Harr graduated from Roosevelt High School in Portland, where she had edited the school’s annual in her senior year. She was also known around the school as a poet. After graduation, she was hired by B & F Cleaners and Dryers before getting married.

Harr married her first husband, Emil Elvin Lutz, and had two sons, Lynn (born 1935) and Gary (1939–1970). Emil died by suicide and she married Joseph Ulysses Haldeman, Jr., but that marriage ended in divorce. Harr met her third husband, Carl Frederick Harr, through their shared interest in Scientology. He was 25 years younger than she, and he proposed many times before she accepted. They married in 1958. He was an ongoing supporter of her creative work and participated in the publication of her journal, Dragonfly. They remained happily married for 36 years; Carl died in 1994. 

Her other interests and hobbies included ikebana, painting (her ink drawings were often featured in and on the cover of the journals), gardening, and traveling.

POET, EDITOR, TEACHER

Harr began writing children’s stories based on tales she told to her sons. She started writing haiku in 1963 and entered the Japan Air Lines National Haiku Contest in 1964. The contest received 41,000 entries. Harr was one of 83 semifinalists, and this accomplishment inspired her to continue writing haiku.

Her earliest journal publication credits included American Haiku from issue 4:2 (1966); Haiku Highlights from 2:6 (June 1966); SCTH from 3:4 (Spring 1967); and Haiku West from 1:1 (June 1967)—Harr was a regular in all these journals in the 1960s. She first appeared in Modern Haiku in issue 1:3 (Summer 1970), The Windless Orchard 3 (November 1970); and the Toronto-based Haiku Magazine 5:1 (1971).

In 1972, Harr became the haiku editor for Haiku Highlights, a journal founded in 1965 and edited by Jean Calkins in Kanona, New York. The journal focused on haikai but contained other short forms of poetry as well (it was originally titled Haiku Highlights and Other Short Poems but the subtitle was dropped in December 1966). Harr became the primary editor for the journal beginning with the January 1973 issue. She restarted the numbering at Vol. 1 No. 1 and renamed the publication DragonFly: a quarterly of Haiku Highlights.¹ She later assigned herself the haigō (pen name) Tombō²—“dragonfly” in Japanese—when some of her students started calling her that because of her association with the journal. After editing her final issue in 1984, Harr turned the journal over to Richard Tice and Jack Lyon in Salt Lake City, Utah, where it was renamed Dragonfly East/West Haiku Quarterly. She continued as consulting editor and had her individual haiku and sequences published through the final issue (16:1, 1993).

Under Harr’s editorship, Dragonfly featured several recurring sections: books received; brief book reviews; haiku publications; contest information from outside organizations; Dragonfly contests and award winners; haibun, senryu, tanka, and renga; articles about Japan, Japanese aesthetics, Japanese poets, and translations of Japanese haiku by other writers such as Kametarō Yagi; articles about Japanese poetic forms; and a concluding seven-verse haiku sequence by Harr herself. Publishing Yagi’s work on a regular basis made Dragonfly unique among English-language haiku publications in the 1970s and 1980s.

The July–August 1972 issue of Haiku Highlights contained what became a central document for Harr, “The Isn’ts of Haiku.” In it, she set forth 11 statements about what haiku is not as a corrective for misunderstandings about the haiku form. Good examples might be the second and sixth of the “isn’ts”:

• Haiku ISN’T just a seventeen syllable poem divided arbitrarily into 5–7–5 lines. It IS an art form in itself.

• Haiku ISN’T didactic: Any obvious, or covert desire to teach, instruct, expound, or imply moral judgements, or human values, turns haiku into a (kind of) English language poetry.

Harr’s own haiku followed her advice. She did not write didactic haiku and she carefully crafted her imagery, line breaks, and punctuation. Consider the following two poems from The Red Barn:

A fading red sunset—    the haze of a stubble fire       hangs in the valley

A single gust of afternoon breeze … thistle seeds float by

Each poem presents two related images that can be experienced at once, but there is no commentary or instruction added in. The two images in each haiku are separated by punctuation. The first poem uses a long dash, which creates the break between the images and introduces a pause. The second uses an ellipsis, which suggests a contrast between the two images. The gust occurs in a single instant and causes the thistle seeds to move. The seeds, however, take longer to float by. Additionally, the dots of the ellipsis visually recall the thistle seeds.

Harr also argued in “The Isn’ts” that haiku was a serious and challenging poetic form that mattered, and its future in English was up to the poets. Her continued work to educate writers about haiku and to provide a publishing venue for poems that met her standards reflects her commitment to these beliefs. Harr continued to rework “The ISN’Ts,” incorporating some of their information into issues of Dragonfly, circulating them in a handout, and publishing them elsewhere. Over time, the list of what haiku is not expanded. The final version of Harr’s “The “ISN’Ts” of Haiku” contained 20 points instead of the original 11.

Harr wrote many other articles to educate people about the haiku form. Short pieces ran in virtually every issue of Dragonfly. Topics ranged from “Taking the -ing out of Haiku” to “Haiku Is—Senryu Is” to “Innovation in Haiku.” She also published essays about haiku in other periodicals, however. Some of these were haiku-specific journals such as Haiku West and Modern Haiku; others were designed for a broader readership. For instance, she published pieces titled “Banish ‘The Blahs’ with Japanese Haiku” and “Haiku: The Nature Poetry from Japan” in The Oregonian newspaper’s Northwest Magazine and “Haiku: ‘The Thusness of Things’” in Writers Digest. These were primarily short essays consistent with the length of her Dragonfly articles.

One longer essay, “Haiku Poetry” published in The Journal of Aesthetic Education in 1975, also demonstrated Harr’s interest in educating literary specialists and the general public about the haiku genre and the consistency with which she approached the genre in the 1970s. The essay provided background on haiku history in Japan, offered sample haiku from Japanese poets and from her own work, discussed what constitutes a haiku, and, in a move consistent with “The ISN’Ts,” addressed what should be avoided in haiku. She explained to readers new to the genre that haiku focus on nature and include a season word, should present “an inner tension between two (or more) divergent objects,” and “should incorporate the elements of time and space, the subjective and objective.” She noted that the syllable count varies in English-language haiku, and regardless of the count, haiku should not be padded with extra words. They also should not express opinions or draw conclusions; and she points out that “metaphor, simile, the humanizing of nature, archaic words, and cliché are all avoided in good haiku.” Based on this article, “The ISN’Ts,” and several of the other short pieces published in Dragonfly and elsewhere, it is clear that Harr honed her approach to haiku in the 1970s. She would adhere to that approach during future decades. 

In 1972, Harr founded the Western World Haiku Society, an organization that continued to promote her view of haiku expressed in “The ISN’Ts.” WWHS sponsored contests, published six anthologies containing the winning haiku in the contests it sponsored, and circulated a newsletter in addition to the continued publication of Dragonfly. Harr also held meetings in her home, where she instructed writers who wanted to learn more about haiku. She called those who gathered there the Tombo Group. Members would gather in her living room to share their haiku and receive feedback from Harr. Harr eventually closed the WWHS, although she continued to hold meetings for her students.

In 1991 one of those students, the poet Wilma Erwin, brought back the Western World Haiku Society. She led the organization under Harr’s direction, and Harr helped oversee the group’s membership anthology, A Patch of Wildflowers, in 1994.

TOMBŌ THE POET

As a poet, Harr was a traditionalist whose haiku included a kigo (season word) and, at least in her early work, followed a 5–7–5–syllable pattern. In the introduction to her 1975 collection, Cats, Crows, Frogs & Scarecrows, she noted that the poems were written before 1968 and “were among my early efforts and for this reason, a number of them are in the 5–7–5 form. The newer trends in haiku left their influence and so there are also haiku in the shorter forms.” Her haiku that were not written in 5–7–5 syllables usually still followed a short-long-short pattern. 

Nevertheless, Harr was also an innovator. She favored manuscripts that focused on a single concept or topic and was one of the first American poets to publish single-subject collections. For instance, Tombo: 226 Dragonfly Haiku (1975) featured haiku about dragonflies inspired by trips with her husband Carl to Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. Consider this sample poem:

THE ROCK’S ONE RAINDROP;          A DRAGONFLY STOPS AND TAKES A SIP OF IT …

Unlike Harr’s other collections, each poem in this book is printed in all caps. The haiku are written in 5, 7, and 5 syllables and are more narrative than her later work. Most of them contain two forms of punctuation, and all of them have end punctuation.

Harr’s 1986 collection, 70 Sevens: Pathways of the Dragonfly, doesn’t actually focus on dragonflies but instead presents all of the “Sevens,” or seven-haiku sequences, that she published in Dragonfly, as well as many that were previously unpublished. Given that the “Sevens” were originally written over many years, the 70 sequences in the collection reveal shifts in Harr’s approach to haiku. For instance, there is a mix of 5–7–5 and non–5–7–5–syllable poems. There are also many haiku crafted from two more concrete images with less narrative description. Most contain only one instance of punctuation and only a few have ending punctuation. An example from the sequence “Dew”:

The child’s grave— on a wreath of white roses drops of morning dew

Other books also focus on specific topics. Cats, Crows, Frogs & Scarecrows and The Red Barn contain haiku inspired by rural landscapes and the creatures that inhabit them. Snowflakes in the Wind is a book exclusively of winter haiku with images that contain or gesture toward a snowy, wintry landscape.

Under The Roan Cliffs: A Collection of Renga, 1994–2001, comprises renga (collaborative linked-verse compositions) written with Oregon poet Brad Wolthers over a ten-year period. Each renga, such as “Ghost Town Tumbleweed” and “Oregon Trail,” focuses on a Western theme. The book was innovative not just in its single-subject focus but in the subject itself. Harr wrote renga with other poets as well, recalling her interest in linked verse first expressed through the capping verse contests she held in issues of Dragonfly.

Harr’s books were also some of the first to compile their contents in novel and unique ways. As previously mentioned, 70 Sevens: Pathways of the Dragonfly was an entire book of haiku sequences. Her chapbook Sundowners featured only haiku written in one horizontal line, a style called “monostich” or, later, “monoku.” This approach to haiku was highly unusual in the period before 1980 and offers an example of Harr’s innovation with the haiku form. The following two poems are representative of Sundowners:

sundown    a fruit gnat swims in the cider jar

sundown    a breeze lifts the nightgown left on the line

Each of the 36 poems begins with the word “sundown.” That first image is followed by a space, then the second image. All of the poems in the chapbook reflect moments of change taking place as the sun sets.

In addition to the haiku, haiku sequences, and renga mentioned above, Harr also wrote in other haikai (haiku-related) forms. In 1981 she published China Sojourn, an extended haibun (short prose piece interspersed with haiku) with photographs from her trip to China. She wrote many senryu (verses in haiku format focusing on human nature) as well, and gathered many of them into The Selected Senryu of Lorraine Ellis Harr (1976).

Central to her subject matter was imagery from the natural world. Flora and fauna, landscapes ranging from the coast to the desert, and the weather regularly appear in her poems. She also wrote about her family, and in some cases, the loss of family members. Many of her poems were about Carl, including the collection Walls of Silence, a grieving cycle of tanka she composed after his death. Lorraine’s son Gary died of diabetes in 1970, and she dedicated her 1977 book, A Flight of Herons: Haiku Seascapes & Seasons, to him, including the following verse:

Climbing the sand dunes       all the way to the top …             the view of the sea

That same year, she published two books of non-haiku poetry, Poems for Peter K. and Poems for Sarah J., dedicated to two of her grandchildren.

HARR’S INFLUENCE AND LEGACY

Owing primarily to her strongly held views of haiku, her long tenure as editor of a pioneering English-language haiku journal, and her dedication to teaching haiku, Lorraine Ellis Harr occupies a singular place in the American haiku hierarchy. Her influence on the poets of the Pacific Northwest was profound and lingers even today. It would not be far off the mark to say that Tombō was a haiku sensei who led an American “school” of haiku on the Japanese model.

Harr’s impact was greatest on the work of her top two students, Wilma Erwin and Brad Wolthers. As previously noted, Erwin resuscitated and continued the work of the Western World Haiku Society for several years under Harr’s direction. Erwin and Wolthers coauthored their own collection of haiku, Nine Steps: A Japanese Garden in the Fog, (1994), with all poems written at the Japanese Garden in Portland. The collection was unique in that poems were not attributed to a specific poet. Two examples from that collection:

lowering fog we stray from one path     and find another

windless day the duck and its reflection      drift toward shore

In addition to Under the Roan Cliffs: A Collection of Renga 1994–2001 that Wolthers wrote with Harr, he also published a solo collection of haiku, Sand, Stone, and Other Living Things (2011). Both Erwin and Wolthers adhered to Harr’s focus on clear imagery, usually taken from the natural world, and the rules outlined in “The ISN’Ts,” although they, like Harr, were willing to innovate as demonstrated by not naming the poet for each haiku in Nine Steps and in the subject matter of Under the Roan Cliffs.

On a national scale, Harr interacted with many poets who were early members of the American haiku movement. As the editor of Dragonfly and one of its contest judges, she not only corresponded with poets around the country but she advanced her approach to haiku through the poems she accepted (and rejected) for publication and those that received awards. These same poets, however, did not only write for publication in Dragonfly. They continued writing and publishing for many years past the journal’s closing, developing their own approaches and distinct haiku voices.

One example of this process might be North Carolina poet Lenard D. Moore. When Moore began writing haiku in the early 1980s, he would discuss his work with Harr on the phone. She wrote the introduction to his first haiku collection, The Open Eye (1985), drawing attention to haiku’s visual qualities, the need to avoid the unessential, and the importance of making the reader see something as if with new eyes. It was an apt description for the haiku in Moore’s book given that many of them focus on specifics of the natural imagery from his home state. For example:

Summer noon; the blueberry field divided by a muddy road

While Harr had poets and students she mentored and many devoted subscribers to her journal, her approach to editing, contest judging, and the Tombo Group did not sit equally well with everyone. Harr was doggedly committed to her version of haiku, often sending out copies of “The ISN’Ts” with notes to the poet whose work she was rejecting. She approached her activities as forms of instruction, always willing to give feedback, and always confident in her role as editor, judge, and instructor. She could be pointed in her criticism and very clear in her praise. In the Tombo Group, she took on the role of sensei, even asking her students to revise their poems under her direction during a public haiku reading. 

Harr was a foundational figure in English-language haiku whose activity during the 1970s–1990s made a significant impact on American haiku. Her work represented one of the primary approaches to haiku during these years: it combined a traditional approach to imagery, nature references, and a lack of philosophizing with an interest in innovation regarding form, subject matter, and full-length collections of haiku. As an editor she also circulated the work of many other haiku poets. Additionally, through articles and workshops she helped raise awareness of haiku as a literary form in English, one with its own conventions and growing body of work.

Lorraine Ellis Harr died at 9:45 p.m. on Friday, March 3, 2006 in Portland, Oregon. She was 93 years old.

AUTHOR: Ce Rosenow

SOURCES / FURTHER READING

Books and chapbooks

• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. Cats, Crows Frogs & Scarecrows. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1975. 170 haiku.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. China Sojourn: A Haibun. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1981. 40 photographs.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. A Flight of Herons: Haiku Seascapes and Seasons. Portland, Ore.: J & C Transcripts, 1977. 396 haiku.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. Poems for Peter K. 1977.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. Poems for Sarah J. 1977.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. The Red Barn: Variations on a Pastoral Theme in Haiku. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1975.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. Ripe Papaya & Orange Slices (after the Chinese). Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1976. Illustrated.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. The Selected Senryu of Lorraine Ellis Harr. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1976. 175 senryu.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. Snowflakes in the Wind. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1976. 196 haiku.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. Tombo: 226 Dragonfly Haiku. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1975. 226 haiku about dragonflies.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. Walls of Silence. Portland, Ore.: Irving Street Press, 1998. Reprinted by Mountain Gate Press in 2001. Tanka.
• Harr, Lorraine E., and Brad Wolthers. Under the Roan Cliffs: A Collection of Renga, 1994–2001. Eugene, Ore.: Mountains and Rivers Press, 2005. Computer enhanced photographs by Brad Wolthers.
• Tombo. 70 Sevens: Pathways of the Dragonfly. Salt Lake City. Utah: Middlewood Press, 1986. 70 seven-haiku sequences.
• tombo. Sparklers: A Posthumous Collection of the Haiku of tombo (Lorraine Ellis Harr). Winchester, Va.: Red Moon Press, 2008.
• Tombo. Sundowners (One-line Haiku). Manchester, N.H.: First Haiku Press, 1980. 36 haiku.

Books and chapbooks edited

• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, ed. The Anthology of Western World Haiku Society 1974–1975 Haiku Award Winners. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1976.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, comp. The Anthology of Western World Haiku Society 1976–1977 Haiku Award Winners. Kanona, N.Y. and Portland Ore.: J & C Transcripts, 1978. 82 haiku by 52 poets.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, ed. The Anthology of the Western World Haiku Society—1977.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, comp. The Anthology of Western World Haiku Society 1978 Haiku Award Winners. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1978. The WWHS’s 5th Annual Haiku Contest winners.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, ed. The Anthology of Western World Haiku Society 1979 Haiku Award Winners. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1980.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, comp. The Anthology of Western World Haiku Society 1980 Haiku Award Winners. Kanona, N.Y. and Portland, Ore.: J & C Transcripts, 1981.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, ed. The Anthology of Western World Haiku Society 1981 Haiku Award Winners. Kanona, N.Y.: J & C Transcripts, 1982.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, comp. Frog Bites. Portland, Ore.: Pond Stars Press, 1993. Members’ anthology, Tombo Group. 81 haiku by 9 poets.
• Harr, Lorraine E., ed. A Patch of Wildflowers: An Anthology of Haiku by Members of the Western World Haiku Society. 1994.

Haiku sequences, haibun, tanka, and longer poems published outside Dragonfly

• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Hippie Haiku: A Sequence.” Modern Haiku 2:4 (Autumn 1971), 11. Sequence (3 haiku).
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Making Cider: A Haiku Sequence.” Modern Haiku 3:3 (1972), 13. sequence (9 haiku).
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Seabirds.” Modern Haiku 7:1 (Winter–Spring 1976), 35. Sequence (4 haiku).
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Sequence on a Watermelon Theme.” Modern Haiku 4:3 (Fall 1973), 13. Sequence (10 haiku).
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Summer Heat: A Sequence.” Modern Haiku 4:2 (Summer 1973), 7. Sequence (10 haiku).
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Surfside Sequence.” Modern Haiku 3:2 (1972), 13. Sequence (6 haiku).
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Two Sequences: Winter Birds and Vacation.” Modern Haiku 3:1 (1972), 30. 2 sequences (3 haiku; 5 haiku).
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “The Willows: A Haiku Sequence.” Modern Haiku 4:1 (Winter–Spring 1973), 8. Sequence (9 haiku).

Reviews of Harr’s work

• Lamb, Elizabeth Searle. “70 Sevens: Pathways of the Dragonfly, by Tombo.” Frogpond 9:4 (11/1/1986), 44.
• Rooney, James P. “Tombo: 266 Dragonfly Haiku, by Lorraine Ellis Harr.” Modern Haiku 6:3 (1975), 43–44.
• Sheirer, John. “70 Sevens: Pathways of the Dragonfly, by Tombo (Lorraine Ellis Harr).” Modern Haiku 18:1 (Winter–Spring 1987), 61–62.
• “Tombo: 26 Dragonfly Haiku, by Lorraine Ellis Harr.” Modern Haiku 6:2 (1975), 47.

Print journals that published Harr’s works

• American Haiku (25 haiku, 1963–1968)
• Amoskeag 1 (10 one-line haiku, 1980)
• Big Sky (Amoskeag 2) (2 one-line haiku, 1981)
• Brussels Sprout (≥39 haiku, 1981–1982)
• Cicada (Toronto) (≥50 haiku, 1977–1981)
• Dragonfly
• Frogpond (6 haiku, 1983–1992)
• Haiku Highlights (≥10 haiku, 1966–1967)
• Haiku Magazine (≥5 haiku 1969–1971)
• Haiku West (40 haiku, 1967–1975)
• Janus & SCTH (29 haiku, 1967–1978)
• Leanfrog (≥5 haiku, 1980–1981)
• Modern Haiku (93 haiku, 1970–1978)
• New Cicada (≥2 haiku, 1985)
• Northwest Literary Forum (≥26 haiku, 1994–1976)
• The Red Pagoda, 1983– 
• Wind Chimes (38 haiku signed Lorraine Ellis Harr, 1981–1985 ; 54 haiku signed tombo, 1983–1987)

Articles and reviews by Harr

• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, selector. “awards.” Modern Haiku 4:2 (Summer 1973), 4–6.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Bashō and Bamboo.” Haiku Highlights 8:6 (November–December 1971), 32.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Dragonfly and the Classical/Traditional Approach to Haiku in English.” Dragonfly [?] (Spring 1979), 22–24.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Foreword.” Lenard D. Moore. The Open Eye. Eugene, Ore.: Mountains and Rivers Press, Limited 30th anniversary edition, 2015.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku / Senryu.” The Red Pagoda 2:3 (December 1984), 3–5.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku and the ‘Lighted Lantern’.” Haiku Highlights 8a:3 (May–June 1972), 33–34.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku and the Order of the Universe.” Haiku Highlights 8a:2 (March–April 1972), 29–30.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku in the Light of Yin-Yang: The Unique Principal.” Haiku West 3:2, 9–13.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku Is a Five-Letter Word.” Dragonfly 1:3 (July 1973), 39.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku Poetry.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 9:3 (July 1975), 112–19.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “The Haiku Sequence.” Dragonfly 3:2 (April 1975), 29.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku—As Elusive as Basho’s Frog.” Modern Haiku 3:1 (1972), 35.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku—Intimation Instead of Exposition.” Dragonfly 8:1 (January 1980), 2, 4.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku: ‘The Thusness of Things’.” Writers Digest (November 1973), 19.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Haiku: We Can Know What It Isn’t.” Dragonfly 7:3 (July 1, 1979), 6.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “The ‘Hands-off’ Factor in Haiku.” Haiku Highlights 8:3 (May–June 1971), 18–19.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “The History of Haiku in Oregon.” Presentation at Haiku Summit 1996, Portland, Ore. (May 10, 1996).
• Harr, Lorraine E. “The Isn’ts of Haiku.” Haiku Highlights 8a:4 (July–August 1972), 23–24.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Meet Your New Editor.” Haiku Highlights 8a:4 (July–August 1972), 17–19.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Nicholas Virgilio: Portrait of a Haiku Poet.” Haiku West 6:1 (July 1972), 36–40.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “The Problem with Critics.” Dragonfly 4:2 (April 1976), 9.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Taking the “ing” Out of Haiku.” Dragonfly 3:4 (October 1975), 64.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “The ‘Hands-Off’ Factor in Haiku.” Haiku Highlights 8:3 (May–June 1971), 17–20.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “‘This’ and ‘That’ in Haiku.” Dragonfly 2:3 (July 1974), 39.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Thoughts on Haiku.” Haiku West 2:1 (July 1968), 41–42.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “The Throat of the Peacock, translated by Harold J. Isaacson.” Modern Haiku 6:1 (1975), 45.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “Traditional Haiku versus Haikutatations.” Haiku Highlights 8a:1 (January–February 1972), 7–9.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis. “What Is a Haiku?” HSA Frogpond 1:3 (August 1, 1978), 7.
• Tombo. “The Development of Haiku in English (first in a series by Lorraine E. Harr).” The Red Pagoda 2:5 (Special Edition, April 1985), 16–17.
• Tombo. The Red Pagoda 5:3 (n.d. [1988]), 14–15.
• Tombo. “Better Begin with Cinquain.” The Red Pagoda 3:3 (January 1986), 4.
• Tombo. “Concepts of Haikuness.” The Red Pagoda 5:1 (n.d. [1988]), 14–15.
• Tombo. “The Development of Haiku in English.” The Red Pagoda 3:1 (July 1985), 4–5. Part 2.
• Tombo. “Haiku and the Way of Life.” The Red Pagoda 3:4 (Spring 1986), 6–7.
• Tombo. “The Haiku Sequence.” The Red Pagoda 3:2 (October 1985), 6. Part 2.
• Tombo. “Haiku: Meaning and Directness.” The Red Pagoda 4:2 (n.d. [1986]), 4–5.
• Tombo. “Haiku: Nature and the Nature of Things.” The Red Pagoda 2:4 (March 1985), 5–6.
• Tombo. “Haiku: Seasonal Setting and Flow.” The Red Pagoda 4:1 (n.d. [1986]), 6–7.
• Tombo. “New Year: A Season Word in Haiku.” The Red Pagoda 4:3 (n. d. [1987]), 4–5.
• Tombo, and Carl [Harr]. “Ten Virtues of the Haiku Tradition.” The Red Pagoda 5:2 (n.d. [1988]), 26.
• Tombo. “The Trouble with Haiku.” The Red Pagoda 3:2 (October 1985), 4–5.
• Tombo. “The Way of Haiku—Living It.” The Red Pagoda 3:4 (Spring 1986), 10. List of 12 attributes and benefits of haiku.
• Tombo. “‘Wonderful-Ordinariness’ in Haiku.” The Red Pagoda 5:3 [1988], 14–15.

Works about Harr

• Rosenow, Ce. “Honorary Curator Lorraine Ellis Harr.” American Haiku Archives website, 2001: https://www.americanhaikuarchives.org/curators/LorraineEllisHarr.html. Biographical sketch with bibliography and sample haiku.

In anthologies

• Haiku ’64 (Tokyo: Japan Air Lines Foundation, 1964). The winning poems of the 1964 Japan Air Lines National Haiku Contest in the U.S. 1 haiku.
• Harr, Lorraine Ellis, comp., Frog Bites (1993). 10 haiku.
• Higginson, William J. Haiku Compass: Directions in the Poetical Map of the United States of America. Tokyo: Haiku International Association, 1994. 1 haiku.
• Higginson, William J. The Haiku Seasons: Poetry of the Natural World. Tokyo, New York, and London: Kodansha International, 1996. 1 haiku.
• Higginson, William J., Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac(1996). 2 haiku.
• Nakano, Jiro, and Brien Hallett, eds. Heiwa: Peace Poetry in English and Japanese. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press for the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, 1996. 1 haiku.
• Noyes, H. F., Favorite Haiku: Brief Essays 1975–1998 Vol. 1 (1998). 1 haiku (as Tombo).
• Noyes, H. F., Favorite Haiku: Vol. 5: Collected Essays (2002). 1 haiku (as Tombo).
• Ross, Bruce, ed., Haiku Moment (1993). 2 haiku.
• Rotella, Alexis Kaye, comp., Butterfly Breezes: A One Time Anthology (1981). 12 haiku.
• Story, Ebba, and Michael Dylan Welch, eds., The Shortest Distance (Haiku North America 1993 conference anthology). 1 haiku.
• van den Heuvel, Cor, ed. The Haiku Anthology: Haiku and Senryu in English. Revised [2nd] edition, 1986, 1991. 9 haiku.
• van den Heuvel, Cor, ed. The Haiku Anthology: Haiku and Senryu in English. Expanded [3rd] edition, 1999. 9 haiku.
• Welch, Michael Dylan, ed., Fire in the Treetops (Haiku North America 25th anniversary anthology, 2015). 1 haiku.

ACTIVITIES

• Haiku Editor, Haiku Highlights, May–June 1972
• Editor, Haiku Highlights, July–August 1972—November–December 1972
• Founder and president, Western World Haiku Society, 1972–ca. 1981.
• Founder and Editor, Dragonfly, January 1973–October 1984

AWARDS AND CONTESTS

• 1964 Japan Air Lines National Haiku Contest, Runner-up (1 of 83)
• American Haiku Award, August 1967
• Haiku Highlights Tanka Contest (March 1967), 3rd Place and 1st Honorable Mention
• Haiku Magazine New Year’s Contest 1969, 3rd Place
• Modern Haiku 2:3 (Summer 1971), Honorable Mention
• Modern Haiku 3:1 (1972), Honorable Mention
• Modern Haiku 4:2 (1973), Special Prize
• Janus & SCTH Special Mention (book award) (April 1974)
• Modern Haiku 7:1 (February 1976), Honorable Mention
• Modern Haiku 9:1 (Winter–Spring 1978), Honorable Mention
• 1st Annual Haiku Contest, Yukuharu Haiku Society of Japan, English Division, 1978, Golden State Sanwa Bank Award
• The Red Pagoda 1st Quarterly Contest, 1983, 1st Place, 4th Place, and Runner-up (1 of 2)
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku in English #80 (1983), Honorable Mention
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku Contest 1984, Honorable Mention
• The Red Pagoda 3rd Quarterly Contest (June 1984), 4th Place
• Special Red Pagoda Award (June 1984; commendation by Louise Somers Winder)
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku in English (1986), Runner-up
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku Contest 1986, Honorable Mention
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku Contest 1987, 2nd Prize
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku in English #377 (1989), Honorable Mention
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku Contest 1989, Honorable Mention
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku in English (1992), Honorable Mention
• Mainichi Daily News Haiku in English #522 (1993), Honorable Mention
• Honorary Curator, American Haiku Archives, 2001–2002

1. The capital “F” in the journal title was changed to lowercase in the second issue (April 1973) and the subtitle later changed to “a quarterly of Haiku.” [↩]
2. Harr was always casual about using the macron in Japanese transliterations, so her haigō often appeared without the macron over the “o”: simply “Tombo.” [↩]