In late 2025, the Association Francophone de Haïku together with the journals l’estran and seashores released Double Horizon: an international haiku anthology. The editorial team, led by Jean Antonini and Gilles Fabre, also included Amanda Bell, Jean-Hughes Chevy and Françoise Saint-Pierre. The collection was published by The Fishing Cat Press in Dublin, Ireland.

Double Horizon is a bilingual anthology in French and English. Despite the ease of modern communication, the French and English-speaking haiku communities are not well connected. The editors of Double Horizon sought to rectify this situation by bringing both groups of poets together in one anthology.

As Jean Antonini said in the Preface to Double Horizon:

“We want to be united in some way by our common humanity while also wanting to distinguish ourselves, especially in terms of the place where we live and the use of our own language.”

“Now, the exceptional history of haiku, which originated in Japan and has become transnational and global, can give us the wings to travel from one language to another and bring our different worldviews closer together.”

Double Horizon is a substantial anthology featuring 139 French and English-speaking haijin from 18 countries. The collection is beautifully laid out, with two pages devoted to each poet. The first page presents six haiku in the poet’s own language while the facing page presents those same haiku translated into the other language: either French or English as appropriate. Also included is a paragraph of the poet’s thoughts on haiku and what it means to them, again presented in both languages.

I found it refreshing to read the work of French-speaking poets, with whom I was for the most part not familiar, intermingled with English-speaking poets. Here are two haiku from Double Horizon:

Concert à l’église
le musicien chauffe ses doigts
au-dessus des cierges

Concert at the church
the musician warms his fingers
above the candles

Daniel Py (France)

hibiscus
dans ton froufrou je respire
un air de tango

hibiscus
finding in your frills
a tango tune

Sandra St-Laurent (Canada)

In the Conclusion to Double Horizon, Gilles Fabre outlines some of the differences between the French and English languages, noting that “haiku in French seem to have a slightly more lyrical or ‘poetic’ tone”. I must admit, even with my limited knowledge of French, I enjoyed the musicality evident in the French-language haiku:

gelée de groseilles —
l’œil brillant de papa
me parle de grand-mémé

redcurrant jelly —
the gleam in dad’s eye
talking about grandma

Mélanie Bosc (France)

Café de Flore
poètes et amants
échangent leurs soupirs

Café de Flore
poets and lovers
exchange their sighs

Patrick Fetu (France)

Thank you to the editors for including six of my haiku in Double Horizon and for translating them into French. It was interesting to see my poems presented in French, and to see how they work in each language.

the way a mango
feels so heavy . . .
your breast in my hand

comme une mangue
qui semble si lourde . . .
ta poitrine dans ma main

Gregory Piko (Australia)

Double Horizon is a marvellous anthology that deserves to be read widely. It is a substantial collection of beautiful haiku by poets from around the world. By dissolving the boundary between French and English, Double Horizon introduces the reader to new poets and new forms of expression. The editors of Double Horizon have done the French and English-speaking haiku communities a service by allowing us to enjoy each other’s haiku content, style and language.

Copies of Double Horizon: An international haiku anthology can be purchased from The Fishing Cat Press via this link.

The banner image at the top of this post is a photograph of the Place de la Bourse in Bordeaux, France.