out of the fridge
the tortoise and I return
to the sun
Category Archives: Haiku
The Haiku Calendar Contest!
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Good news! Snapshot Press has announced the results of The Haiku Calendar Contest 2012, selecting the entries for next year 2013. I am very pleased that one of my haiku, ‘winter wind,’ written in response to a NaHaiWriMo prompt, has made it as a runner-up and will be included in the Calendar! The complete results can be seen here
About the Haiku Calendar (I quote from their site):
“The Haiku Calendar has appeared annually since the 2000 edition was published in 1999. Edited by John Barlow, and featuring haiku poets from around the world, the calendar continues a rich tradition exploring and celebrating the relevance of seasonal references in English-language haiku.”
Of course, this proves the point: my daily haiku training at NaHaiWriMo is doing me good!
haiku #3 April 2012
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hawthorn blossom –
the thorny issues no longer
matter
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: blossom
haiku #2 April 2012
April rain –
this year too the water butt
half full
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: rain
National Poetry Month: Margaret Dornaus
Well, April, the cruelest month, is upon us! Thank God we have poetry to help us survive it. Poetry, Poetry, Poetry, Poetry!
The Haiku Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, Poets.org, brim with wonderful poetry to feed the soul – and the senses! Visit them and forget about April; or at least enjoy it! There is also Per Diem, the Daily haiku offered by The Haiku Foundation on their home page (bottom right-hand corner); Couplets, the multi-author poetry blog, coordinated by Joanne Merriam of Upper Rubber Boot Books, the Facebook pages of NaHaiWriMo, and numerous other projects, workshops, readings, and poetry-related events.
On this first day of Poetry Month, I am very happy to host Margaret Dornaus, ‘writer, a teacher, wife, traveler . . . as well as a haiku-doodler.’ Margaret says about herself, ‘I live in a beautiful woodland setting, surrounded by native oak forests, that inspires me to record haiku snapshots of luna moths and our resident roadrunner, and even an occasional black bear as it hightails it across the top of my road, my mongrel dog barking at its heels as I watch with wonder’.
In her post hosted here, Margaret kindly states, ‘I’m thrilled to exchange places with Stella for the day in observance of National Poetry Month and to have her wonderful work featured on my blog, Haiku-doodle (http://www.haikudoodle.wordpress.com).
Margaret herself chose to offer three poems (see below). This is how she reflects on her offering:
‘After we decided to share three of our poems on each other’s site, I contemplated whether I should contribute haiku or tanka. I began writing both about a year and a half ago, and, although I was already familiar with haiku, I knew nothing about tanka until I accidentally stumbled upon a call for submissions to Pamela A. Babusci’s journal Moonbathing. When I started studying this ancient lyrical form and reading the work of other tanka poets, I knew I’d found a home . . . . And so I’ve chosen three tanka to feature here today.’
you remind me
how it felt that night we met . . .
our universe
filled with possibilities
and the soft hum of tree frogs
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Simply Haiku, vol. 9, no. 1, Spring 2011
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years from now
I promise to remember
how you looked that night
alone on the verandah
holding moonlight in your hands
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First place, Tanka Society of America
2011 International Tanka Contest
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in darkness
we forget our anger . . .
suddenly
the sound of wild geese
piercing the starless night
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Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal,
vol. 7, no. 1, Spring 2011
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This blog post exchange is part of the Couplets project, a multi-author poetry blog tour coordinated by Joanne Merriam of Upper Rubber Boot Books “to help promote poetry and poets for National Poetry Month“.
haiku #31 March 2012
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running scared –
April fool catches
his shadow
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NaHaiWriMo Prompt: April fools
senryu #30 March 2012
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rice paper –
how often do I eat
my words
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: writing
haiku #28 March 2012
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growing old –
I get to know the back
of my eye
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: growing
senryu #27 March 2012
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theater night
my dress the same color
as the seats
NaHaiWriMo prompt: Theater
haiku #26 March 2012
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hanami
a girl asks
for cherries
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: cherry tree (viewing)
haiku #25 March 2012
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Epitaphios
in the procession
he gives her lilacs
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: religious ceremony
haiku #24 March 2012
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morning walk
sweet song of a bird
I don’t know
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: sweet
haiku #23 March 2012
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gloaming
after gathering leaves
an early night
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: weather
haiku #22 March 2012
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sweating the neck of the clay water pot
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: water
Something about April
April is not only the cruelest month. It is also National Poetry Month – for some of the world, anyway. Let’s not split hairs. We all want to celebrate poetry, so let’s do it. Poets, writers, publishers, readers, poetry lovers are planning get-togethers for poetry-related events: fests, readings, workshops, write-ins, stay-in-bed for poetry, day-dreaming…this kind of thing.
This is what I will be doing: I’ll be celebrating at ‘Couplets,’ a multi-author blog tour for April, to help promote poetry and poets for National Poetry Month. Co-ordinated by Joanne Merriam of Upper Rubber Boot Books it is going to be a fe(a)st. I am taking part and will be posting, besides my daily haiku, poetry-laden posts during the month. Come over to my web home and we’ll eat poetry words together!
Meanwhile, here are a few links to keep us going till then:
The Haiku Foundation: They say: “April 17, National Haiku Poetry Day, is a celebration of the genre of haiku, a kind of poetry whose origins date back a millennium in Japan; and more specifically, of English-language haiku, which has now been written for more than a century”. But you don’t have to wait till the 17th! You can explore this wonderful site, founded by Jim Kacian, and enjoy the best haiku and haiku poets in the world.
While visiting THF, check out their Per Diem: Daily Haiku series. In March they post my selection of haiku of the senses: haiku by some of the best poets highlighting the interconnectedness of sensory experience (Per Diem can be found on the front homepage of the Foundation, at the bottom right-hand corner). In April they post “Poems from Aotearoa, New Zealand haiku, featuring flora and fauna specific to those favored isles, and human activities, such as Anzac Day (April 25).” Editor: Sandra Simpson.
The Facebook page of National Haiku Poetry Month, or NaHaiWriMo, moderated by Michael Dylan Welch, has been running since February 2011. Although their haiku ‘month’ is February, they ‘haiku’ the whole year round. You can read or indeed “write at least one haiku a day, inspired by daily writing prompts”. The community is friendly and warm, encouraging…join them and surprise yourself! I have!
Poets.org has a page listing events and poetry resources here
Feel free to add/share any other events you may know of.
haiku #21 March 2012
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equinox
standing on my own
two feet
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: nature/equinox/earth
haiku #20 March 2012
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change of heart
on the back seat a single
rose
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: change
haiku #19 March 2012
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spring tides
the clay at the centre
of my being
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: arts and crafts
senryu #18 March 2012
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lazy Sunday
a choir boy misses
the bus
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: Sunday
senryu, in Sketchbook Haiku Editor’s Choices
diamond jubilee—
a girl practices
her curtsies
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conflict diamonds—
boy soldiers sharpen
machetes
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diamonds—
the glaze on this girl’s
eyes
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In Sketchbook 7 Jan/feb 2012, Haiku Thread ( in John Daleiden’s Touchstone Perspectives)
haiku #17 March 2012
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fortune telling –
I study the flight patterns
of doves
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: luck
haiku #16 March 2012
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in my neighbors’ yard-
a blue tit pecks
his wisteria buds
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: hidden
senryu #15 March 2012
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Ides of March-
I cross the road
halfway
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: Ides of March
Shortlisted tanka news
Delighted and honoured that my tanka was shortlisted for the Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Vol 4.
The anthology series founded by tanka poet and editor, M. Kei, announced the short list for the fourth annual volume (2011) in March 2012. The nine editors headed by M. Kei (USA), Patricia Prime (NZ), Magdalena Dale (RO), Amelia Fielden (AUS), Claire Everett (UK), Owen Bullock (NZ), David Terelinck (AUS), Janick Belleau (CAN), and David Rice (USA), embarked on the amazing feat of reading all tanka published in English during 2011 with the goal of selecting the best individual tanka, kyoka, waka, gogyohka, gogyoshi, tanka sequences, tanka prose, and responsive tanka for inclusion in the annual anthology. The team read approximately eighteen thousand poems to choose about three hundred for inclusion in this, the fourth and final volume in the Take Five series. Well done to the editors and to the poets among us who got selected! I for one am thrilled and hugely encouraged!
The announcement can be read here
haiku for the #14 March 2012
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your touch
in the shape of this bowl –
Raku
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: gift; Joys of Japan: Raku
haiku #13 March 2012
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Cassiopeia –
in her laughing mouth
sparkle of a star
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: star
haiku #12 March 2012
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Fukushima moon
wave after wave
of prayers
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haiku #11 March 2012
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Fukushima sky
waiting for the first signs
of spring
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Other Worlds (haibun)
I had been walking for hours. Hungry, thirsty, sweat dripping down my face, I was hardly capable of thinking, or imagining, my usual pastimes. Yet, here it was, in front of me, an impossible sight, a mirage. What else could this door-frame be in the middle of fields, in the center of the Peloponnese?
The air around me was hot, suffocating, as if half of the baked earth had floated upwards and was now swimming in it; it resonated thick with the sound of cicadas. The relentless sun had been plaguing me all morning. And it was the sun – more than anything else – that made me sit under that frame; on the thin band of shade it provided.
Resting my head on my knees, I lost consciousness. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I came to the frame was casting an elongated shadow.
Getting up, I felt my knees stiffen. I took a closer look. I could now see this ‘thing’ was not really a door frame. It was carved out of a kind of wood I had not seen before, of a tree I’d never encountered in my life.
Puzzled I touched it lightly. It moved! Alarmed, I jumped back. It stopped moving. I started feeling the frame for clues.
At the top right hand corner I traced something protruding, something like a splinter or a thin nail. I pulled gently. A slight breeze brushed my face, as if a door had been opened. I could smell jasmine, lemon and tar all mixed up; I could taste the salt of the Aegean sea! I heard the cries of sea-gulls and the flutter of their wings. A door had really been opened to another world.
doors –
butterflies
on wild thyme
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A version of this haibun was published in Contemporary Haibun Online, Jan 1, 2012, vol 7 no 4
haiku #8 March 2012
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your gentle glow
outshines this solar storm –
full moon
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: moon
