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| Issue 34: | Sept. 2026 |
| Haibun: | 59 words |
By Matthew Caretti
Coming to Grief
The chemicals into the Vietnam jungle. The chemicals now into him.
prognosis a sort of tropical depression
The rains persist as I watch her watching him. Watch the slow drip.
waiting room grandmother’s paper fan
His bucket list of unchecked boxes. The house he never made a home.
to be human remains of snow in spring
Matthew Caretti
began publishing his poems in 2009, though his fascination with Eastern short-form genres began much earlier. His published collections include Harvesting Stones (winner of the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award, 2017), and three books with Red Moon Press: Africa, Buddha (haibun, 2022), Ukulele Drift: Poems from a Small Island (haiku, 2023), and Slow Boat to Samoa (haibun, 2025). His poem “Deep Water Port” received a Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun for 2023.
His prose and poems appear regularly in print and online venues including cattails, the Contemporary Haibun Anthology (multiple volumes), contemporary haibun online, Frogpond, hedgerow, Modern Haiku, and Tiny Moments (Volumes II through V), among others. He teaches high school English and leads a simple life in Pago Pago, American Samoa.
More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond
⚡ Hokusai’s Wave, haibun by Matthew Caretti in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 33, August 2026)
⚡ Mating for Life by Caretti in contemporary haibun online 21.3 (30 November 2025)
⚡ Matthew Caretti, featured poet in TRIVENI Haikai India: THE HAIBUN GALLERY (12 December 2024)
⚡ Two Favorite Haibun: Travel, the Senses, and the Unfamiliar by Caretti in contemporary haibun online 19.2 (August 2023)
⚡ Drinking Pálinka With Attila, haibun by Caretti in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 7, March 2021)
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