Jim Kacian

In August 2013 his comprehensive anthology Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years was published by W. W. Norton & Company. Kacian served as editor-in-chief for the decade-long project, with Allan Burns and Philip Rowland as associate editors, and with a general introduction by former poet laureate Billy Collins. The anthology tells the story of English-language haiku from its first recognized example—Ezra Pound's “In a Station of the Metro”—to current practice, and offers selections from well over 200 poets in a chronological format. It also features Kacian's 70-page overview of the genre.

(along with 29 other chosen haiku) is etched in a stone along the Katikati Haiku Pathway beside the Uretara Stream in New Zealand. (Poems were selected by the Katikati Haiku Pathway Focus Committee, New Zealand Poetry Society, and Catherine Mair.) In 2010 a second stone featuring his poem

In late 2008 Kacian formed and created The Haiku Foundation, a non-profit organization which focuses on archiving English-language haiku's first century while expanding its second, with an official start-date of January 6, 2009.

with an additional 17 personally selected in December, 2008 at:

In October 2008 he won the Ginyu Award for Outstanding Contribution to World Haiku (Ginyu issue 40, pp. 13–15).

From August to November 2000, Kacian traveled to nine countries — the UK, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan promoting a global haiku. Having invited haiku poets from around the world to submit their haiku to Frogpond, Kacian compiled and edited 2001's XXIV:1 issue, featuring haiku from 24 countries.

In August 2000, Knots — The Anthology of Southeastern European Haiku Poetry (1999), which Kacian co-edited with Dimitar Anakiev, won second place in the World Haiku Achievement Competition.

Having proposed a new global haiku association in 1999, Kacian co-founded the World Haiku Association with Ban'ya Natsuishi and Dimitar Anakiev. In September 2000 the WHA held its inaugural conference in Tolmin, Slovenia.

In 1996 his production of John Elsberg's A Week in the Lake District was a finalist for Virginia Poetry Book of the Year (Virginia State Library).

In 1993, he founded Red Moon Press, and in the same year began editing the haiku journal South by Southeast. Kacian's Red Moon Press is the largest publisher of haiku and haiku-related books outside Japan, with a current catalog of over 60 titles in print, and producing some dozen titles a year, including 12 years of the award-winning annual Red Moon Anthology. This was followed in 1998 with the editorship of Frogpond, the journal of the Haiku Society of America.

Kacian was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, then adopted and raised in Gardner, Massachusetts. He wrote his first mainstream poems in his teens, and published them in small poetry magazines beginning in 1970. He also wrote, recorded, and sold songs while living in Nashville in the 1980s. Upon his return to Virginia in 1985 he discovered English-language haiku, for which he is best known.

James Michael Kacian (born July 26, 1953) is an American haiku poet, editor, publisher, and public speaker. He has lived in London, Nashville, Bridgton (Maine) and now resides in Winchester, Virginia.