Photo by Gerry Eddy
Robert Witmer (born November 18, 1951, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.), American professor of English at Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, from 1980 until retirement in 2022. He has been publishing in the major print and online haiku journals since 2012, had work included in major anthologies since 2015, and authored two books of haiku, sequences, and prose pieces: Finding a Way (2015) and Serendipity (2023). He has also published poems and prose pieces in various forms in print and online journals and anthologies. Among other honors, he was awarded First Place in the 2021 Haiku Poets of Northern California Tanka Contest and has three times received an Honorable Mention in the Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Awards. He has taught courses in haiku and other forms of poetry not only at Sophia University but also at Temple University Japan and Parvatibai Chowgule College of Arts and Science in Goa State, India. Witmer resides in Tokyo.
Note: This is an abstract of a longer biographical article to come.