I've been the librarian at Elmcrest Elementary in Liverpool for twelve years. Several years ago the art teacher went on a professional development trip to Japan. When she returned, she had the idea of a combined haiku and art project where second graders would write a haiku and paint something about nature. I had done some writing before, mostly personal journal writing and stuff for work, but since I started doing haiku with the children, I started writing more of them on my own.

One day I saw the article for the Poster Project in the newspaper and I thought wouldn't it be cool if my poem got picked. That way I could show the kids that haiku could be anywhere!