Carlos Colón (23 April 1953 – 30 October 2016) was an American poet. He primarily wrote English-language haiku and concrete poems. During his lifetime, he published over 12

chapbook A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 1 ...

s and over 1,400 poems published in a variety of journals including ''Modern Haiku'' and ''Frogpond''. He later was nicknamed Haiku Elvis due to the

Elvis Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Presley's sexuall ...

costume he would wear to do public readings of his poetry.

Biography

Colón was born in

Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, third-most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, Lo ...

and lived there for most of his life. He earned his bachelor's degree from

Louisiana State University Shreveport Louisiana State University Shreveport (LSU Shreveport or LSUS) is a public university in Shreveport, Louisiana. It is part of the Louisiana State University System. Initially, a two-year college, LSUS has expanded into a university with 25 u ...

and a master's degree in

library science Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with info ...

from

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

. He worked as a reference librarian at the Shreveport Memorial Library until his retirement. He died from a heart attack at age 63.

Haiku

The following is a famous haiku of his: He has written poetry books with Alexis Rotella. He has written several "visual haiku", sometimes known as "eye-ku". He was a consultant about visual haiku for the book ''Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years''. His chapbook ''Mountain Climbing'' was dedicated to Marlene Mountain, among other authors.

Honors and awards

In Shreveport, a mural called "Let the Good Times Roll" features one of his haiku. Shreveport also had an art project called "Highway Haiku" between 2002 and 2006, where Colón contributed two poems that were featured on

billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

s in the city. His work has been nominated for a

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

. He is a founding member of the Northwest Louisiana Haiku Society. His work has been featured in Tazuo Yamaguchi's ''Haiku: The Art of the Short Poem'' film. * Shreveport Regional Arts Council Literature Fellowship, 2002 * Caddo Parish Poet Laureate, 2014

Bibliography

Poetry

* ''The Worst of Almira Gulch'', self-published, 1984 * ''Blue Jay on a Bowling Pin'', self-published, 1991 * ''Jiminy limericks: A collection of animal poems for children'', self-published, 1991 *
Mountain Climbing
', self-published, 1993 * ''Clocking Out'', self-published, 1996 * ''Nothing Inside'', with Alexis Rotella, proof press, 1996 * ''Sassy'', with Alexis Rotella, 1998 * ''Circling Bats'', with Raffael de Gruttola, 2001 * ''Wall Street Park'', with Raffael de Gruttola, 2007 * ''Autumn Leaves'', with Raffael de Gruttola, 2010 * ''The Inside Scoop: New and Selected Poems'', Naissance, 2010 * ''Haiku Elvis'', Laughing Cactus Press, 2013

References

External links

Remembering Carlos Colón the Haiku Elvis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Colón, Carlos English-language haiku poets 1953 births 2016 deaths American male poets Librarians from Louisiana Writers from Shreveport, Louisiana