The Poet and the Poem
2026-27 Series

Featured Roberta Beary

Click here for Roberta Beary podcast.mp3

Roberta Beary they/she, winner of the Bridport Poetry Prize, was born and raised in Queens, New York and currently resides in Bethesda, Maryland. Their work appears in Tiny Love Stories (Modern Love/New York Times), Rattle, HAD, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Best Small Fictions, and other publications. Their short poem collection, The Unworn Necklace, was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America book award, a first for a book of haiku. Her haiku and haibun collection, Deflection, was named a National Poetry Month Best Pick by Washington Independent Review of Books. Beary co-edited Wishbone Moon, an international anthology of haiku by women. Their most recent haiku collection, Carousel, won the Snapshot Press Book Award (2024) and received finalist book awards from the Haiku Society of America and The Haiku Foundation (2025). Their collaborative work on One Breath: The Reluctant Engagement Project, pairs their haiku with artwork by people with disabilities. Crazy Bitches: Selected Haibun 2004-2024 (MacQ Books, 2025), is a Touchstone Award, Eric Hoffer Award, and Julie Suk Award finalist. Co-author of the craft book, Haibun A Writer's Guide, (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023), Beary is the longtime haibun editor for Modern Haiku and travels the world as Roving Ambassador for The Haiku Foundation. Her recent chapbook, The Heart of Haibun, is available as a free download at Buttonhook Press. As a haiku contest winner, her short poems have appeared on tea bottles, calendars, buses, quilts, paintings, and postcards. Beary believes haiku is the best free medicine in the world.

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