Lee Gurga

{{Short description|American poet}} '''Lee Gurga''' (born July 28, 1949 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American haiku poet. In 1997 he served as president of the Haiku Society of America.<ref>{{cite news |title=To a Haiku Writer, Spam Is Poetry in a Can |author=Matthew Mirapaul |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/12/technology/to-a-haiku-writer-spam-is-poetry-in-a-can.html |newspaper=New York Times |date=November 12, 1998 |accessdate=April 14, 2012}}</ref> He was the editor of ''Modern Haiku'' magazine from 2002 to 2006, and is the current editor of the Modern Haiku Press. Gurga lives in Lincoln, Illinois, where he works as a dentist.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.appledental-lincoln.com/about.html |title=Apple Dental Center - About Us |accessdate=2009-11-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120125805/http://www.appledental-lincoln.com/about.html |archive-date=2008-11-20 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Dentist from rural Illinois writes Japanese-style poetry two years in a row, his haiku have won top American prizes |author=Staff writer |author-link=Staff writer |url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB052A26C7A4C44&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM |newspaper=Associated Press |date=September 5, 2000 |accessdate=April 14, 2012 |archive-date=October 12, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141012004851/http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB052A26C7A4C44&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM |url-status=dead }}</ref> Also involved in the translation of Japanese haiku into English, Gurga cites Matsuo Bashō, a Japanese poet from the Edo period, as one of his main appreciations.<ref>{{cite news |title=In our high-stress culture, haiku emerges as popular form of expression |author=Diane Toroian |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-120219721.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409132225/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-120219721.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 9, 2016 |newspaper=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |date=July 19, 2002 |accessdate=April 14, 2012|url-access=subscription }}</ref> One of his most known haiku is about graduation day for students and is presented in his book ''Haiku: A Poet's Guide''.<ref>{{cite news |title=Teaching Richard Wright's Haiku in Japan |author=Toru Kiuchi |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-214602941.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141001033741/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-214602941.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 1, 2014 |newspaper=The Black Scholar |date=March 22, 2009 |accessdate=April 14, 2012|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Background== Born in Chicago, Gurga attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He first became interested in haiku during his high school years after reading a haiku translation book by Reginald Horace Blyth. He started his own haiku writing after that, focusing on Midwest imagery and scenery for his topics.<ref name="Baseball">{{cite book |title=Baseball Haiku: American and Japanese Haiku and Senryu on Baseball |last=Heuvel |first=Cor Van Den |author-link=Cor van den Heuvel |year=2007 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn= 9780393066388|pages=70–73 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8AafD8NG7wIC&pg=PA70|accessdate=April 15, 2012}}</ref>

==Bibliography== * ''The Measure of Emptiness'' (Press Here, 1991) * ''In and Out of Fog'' (Press Here, 1997) * ''Fresh Scent'' (Brooks Books, 1998)<ref name="Baseball"/> * ''Haiku: A Poet's Guide'' (Modern Haiku Press, 2003)<ref name="Baseball"/> * ''Autumn Mosquito'' (2005)<ref name="Baseball"/>

== References == {{Reflist}}

==Further reading== * {{cite news |title=Contemporary haiku brings dentist to Decatur |author=David Burke |url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=DH&p_theme=dh&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0FD07FC01B074D16&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM |newspaper=Herald & Review |date=January 27, 1999 |accessdate=April 14, 2012}} * {{cite news |title=Haiku headline/short, to point/please read Devotees take poetry form seriously |author=Kristen Go |url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=DM&p_theme=dm&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0ED3D928BA778696&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM |newspaper=Dallas Morning News |date=July 5, 1997 |accessdate=April 14, 2012}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gurga, Lee}} Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:English-language haiku poets Category:20th-century American dentists Category:Poets from Chicago Category:20th-century American poets Category:21st-century American dentists