Screenshot 2025-09-21 at 11.24.48 AM.png
Screenshot 2025-09-21 at 1.52.33 PM.png
2-19-09 017.jpg
bike on dune.jpg
pigeons by Birte Liu:unsplash.jpg
rotting rose.webp
sf scape.jpg
Screenshot 2025-09-21 at 11.24.48 AM.png

downhill home


downhill home

HAIKU & SENRYU by CHUCK BRICKLEY

SCROLL DOWN

downhill home


downhill home

HAIKU & SENRYU by CHUCK BRICKLEY

HOT OFF THE PRESS!!!

DOWNHILL HOME
by
Chuck Brickley
author of multi-award-winning
EARTHSHINE

Purchase DIRECT From Author (US only)
Chuck Brickley is a master of shokumoku, or “glimpse.” These haiku and senryu from the San Francisco Bay Area reverberate not only with the tragic stories of our time, but also with the joyful moments of our daily life. I really love them.
— Shigeyoshi Hara, 
Professor Emeritus, Dokkyo University, Japan Translator of Danger on Peaks, and other works by Gary Snyder
DOWNHILL HOME is nothing short of an offering, revealing how wisdom deepens when we see with our hearts and how a single moment can expand our understanding. These exquisitely crafted poems reflect what it means to care for this world and those with whom we share it. This book is amazing.
— Ce Rosenow, Past President, Haiku Society of America
Vibrant and subtle, personal and universal, DOWNHILL HOME expands the canvas of Chuck Brickley’s multi-award-winning debut, EARTHSHINE. These perceptive haiku and socially conscious senryu explore the timeless themes of family, love and death against a backdrop born of mindful observation and the minutiae of the past, present and futuristic lives of ‘home’.
— John Barlow, publisher SNAPSHOT PRESS
I was completely inspired & blown away by the sensitivity, craft & formal adventure of these poems.
— E.H., Green Apple Books, San Francisco
Screenshot 2025-09-21 at 1.52.33 PM.png

fogbow


downhill home . . .

from rural British Columbia where my wife and I lived for most of our lives to the southwestern edge of San Francisco, our birth city.

fogbow


downhill home . . .

from rural British Columbia where my wife and I lived for most of our lives to the southwestern edge of San Francisco, our birth city.

 

a fogbow
at the end
my hometown

2-19-09 017.jpg

dwellings


downhill home . . .

from various dwellings along the banks of wild rivers
to the house where I met her family on our first date.

dwellings


downhill home . . .

from various dwellings along the banks of wild rivers
to the house where I met her family on our first date.

stirring
the California bay leaf in
me

wind a kitten stalks into the unmown

bike on dune.jpg

Venus


downhill home . . .

from the vast wildernesses of the Pacific Northwest
to Bay Area beaches, nature preserves, and secret stairways climbing ‘halfway to the stars.’

Venus


downhill home . . .

from the vast wildernesses of the Pacific Northwest
to Bay Area beaches, nature preserves, and secret stairways climbing ‘halfway to the stars.’

rolling down
the back windows too
smell of the sea


rinsing a scallop shell in the sea Venus


the ocean down my street rising sunset

pigeons by Birte Liu:unsplash.jpg

the last hopscotch square


downhill home . . .

from a small town where few people live on the street
to a city where thousands do.

the last hopscotch square


downhill home . . .

from a small town where few people live on the street
to a city where thousands do.

dawn a needle in the last hopscotch square

 

    dark cumulus
pigeons settle
on a gum-speckled corner

city tents
a pit bull wags
what’s left

rotting rose.webp

American Beauty


downhill home . . .

from an aging person long inspirited by communing with nature
to one also bearing witness to our troubled city, country, planet.

American Beauty


downhill home . . .

from an aging person long inspirited by communing with nature
to one also bearing witness to our troubled city, country, planet.

American Beauty
the poison he sprays
in the wind

 

Old Glory
waving like there’s no

 

half our state away
and yet the wipers swish
ash es
ash es

sf scape.jpg

hope


downhill home . . .

from hope flowering in dreams
to hope rooted in our times.

hope


downhill home . . .

from hope flowering in dreams
to hope rooted in our times.

our embrace
the frayed white curtains
billowing inside

 

crisp fall air
the neighbor who never says hi
says hi

street pupusa
an old Salvadoran
closing his eyes

End (Copy)


End (Copy)


 

For orders inside the U.S. only, please go to link at the top of this page.


For orders outside the U.S. only, go to link below.

Snapshot Press Books
United Kingdom

Purchase ONLINE (UK/EMEA)