B.A. France

Poetry and Writing

Haiku, Senryu, Poetry & More

Who?

B.A. France is a writer, poet, and waterman living in the Chesapeake Bay region of the United States. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and his chapbooks Season's End , ink drinkers, and his collaborative e-chap with Orrin Pre-Jean Retweets.

Where has the work appeared?

Akitsu Quarterly Failed Haiku

Autumn Moon Haiku Journal Wales Haiku Journal

Modern Haiku Under the Basho

Last Leaves Fireflies' Light

Poetry Pea Cantos

Prune Juice Presence

Ribbons Seashores

Shot Glass Journal Cold Moon Journal

... and more

ink Drinkers

A chapbook of senryu poetry published in March of 2023 with

Alien Buddha Press.

“Intoxicating from the first word, ink drinkers flows smoothly from one poem to the next. Served straight up, B.A. Frances’s senryu musings on life and writing will leave you asking for another round.”
- Bryan Rickert, poet & editor of
Failed Haiku Journal of Senryu

“B.A. France writes senryu that dives deep into the psychology/emotions of everyday people, their impulses, actions, and more. He writes senryu that has 'Self' as the starting point. This poet's senryu gives off a rich, resonant, and lingering scent/feeling that will leave one very impressed. ink drinkers provides quality senryu that stands on its own and will have the reader coming back again and again.”
- Orrin Préjean, senryu poet &
author of Dewdrop World

You can find it at Amazon, click on the cover.

Season's End

My first chapbook Season's End was published in March of 2021 under the Alabaster Leaves imprint of Kelsay Books.

You can find it in the Kelsay Books Bookstore, at Barnes & Noble, as well as Amazon and other booksellers.

ROBIN WHITE, editor of Akitsu Quarterly
In Season’s End, B.A. France not only takes note of the crickets, creeks, the Cabbage White, he also takes the reader on a looping, curving road that opens to another path, a grazing room, where we, too, might escape our tunnel vision and “unfurl at the edge” of the wood. A lovely debut, “freckled with the vibrance of blue…”
JEANNIE F. MARTIN, author of Clear Water
When you open Season’s End, you enter the lush world of nature in all her fecundity: trees, leaves and flowers, forest paths, birds and butterflies, and much more. In this book, all of nature is in motion, and you can feel it with the detailed and delightful descriptions set before us ... In Season’s End, we find a delight to our senses as B.A. France shares close observation and wonder of the natural world, his world, as it is closely known.

Retweets (w/ Orrin PréJean)

An open-access e-chapbook, Retweets is a collaboration with

Orrin PréJean-Champs published in September 2021 and based on our shared engagement with senryu on social media.

You can find it in The Haiku Foundation's Digital Library and

for free download from the authors..

Why haiku and Tanshi?

"What matters is being in the moment. What matters is stretching our observational muscles. What matters is finding a moment, just a single moment, to be grateful for. What matters is finding our creativity again. And during this time, working simply with seventeen syllables or less, maybe we will find that we can."

From my essay "Billy Collins and the Pandemic Haiku" which you can read at South 85 Journal.