volume 1 December 2020
waiting for candy
Christmas parade
no float for the baby
twilight clouds
rosary in her hands
winter woods
ashes dumped on new snow scolding nuthatch
How Barbara Robinette Came to Write Haiku: For over 20 years, Barbara wrote and shared her free verse poetry. And then one day, the well dried up with no more words to say in even a remotely free verse way. She rediscovered an old interest in watercolor painting and saw that the Illinois State Poetry Society posts haiga online. Thinking that would be a way to share her images, she added 17 syllables in 3 lines to her painting of a tulip in a vase. However, she didn’t really know what she was doing and later realized she had written an ekphrastic poem.
Very embarrassing . . . but then she resolved to learn about modern English Language Haiku. She bought some books and loved reading other people’s haiku while learning the nuts and bolts of the art from respected authors. She found out that she has a lot to learn and that, happily, she still has a few words left to say within the art of haiku.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the stone
in my heart
pierced--
in that moment
love poured in
the sway
of a lavender stem
in China
a typhoon--
butterfly effect
a new life
after dying
dried thyme
if nothing else
remember this
Marilyn Fleming
I can attribute my love of haiku and other forms of Asian poetry from a creative writing class I took in 1987. The instructor pulled me aside and told me I had a natural talent for writing haiku. From that point on I was hooked. In 1988 my first haiku was published in Modern Haiku under the tenure of Robert Spiess. I received a remuneration of $1.00 and still have it framed along with the haiku. It was also usual at that time for contributors to receive a free copy of the journal they were published in. In December of 1988 I won first prize in the Hildegarde Janzen Oriental Forms sponsored by “Amelia” for a haiku sequence “Africa Sunrise.” I enjoyed moderate success until Dec of 1989. At that time I took a break from writing for 24 years due to career and family obligations. After I retired, I happily returned to my poetry. From 2012 to the present I have enjoyed writing forms of Asian poetry and have been published in journals, internationally as well as nationally.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
a raven’s eye
the blackened perch
among ruins
first snow flakes . . .
the warmth
of a late-blooming rose
at the table
with wobbly legs
election news
MaryJo Balistreri
How I came to Haiku: What hooked me at first was that haiku was nature-centered and that’s where my heart is. Then it was the challenge of saying something in three lines. What keeps me in is both of those things—the nature, the challenge, and the incredible beauty of a line when sometimes it all comes together. What also keeps me in is that I’ll always be a beginner. Haiku is always new—subject matter, form, new understanding which to me is like life flow. All that led to a change of life attitude of seeing the small, the unnoticed—the awareness of life that had completely bypassed me. I’d be lost without it at this point.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
waiting for candy
Christmas parade
no float for the baby
twilight clouds
rosary in her hands
winter woods
ashes dumped on new snow scolding nuthatch
How Barbara Robinette Came to Write Haiku: For over 20 years, Barbara wrote and shared her free verse poetry. And then one day, the well dried up with no more words to say in even a remotely free verse way. She rediscovered an old interest in watercolor painting and saw that the Illinois State Poetry Society posts haiga online. Thinking that would be a way to share her images, she added 17 syllables in 3 lines to her painting of a tulip in a vase. However, she didn’t really know what she was doing and later realized she had written an ekphrastic poem.
Very embarrassing . . . but then she resolved to learn about modern English Language Haiku. She bought some books and loved reading other people’s haiku while learning the nuts and bolts of the art from respected authors. She found out that she has a lot to learn and that, happily, she still has a few words left to say within the art of haiku.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the stone
in my heart
pierced--
in that moment
love poured in
the sway
of a lavender stem
in China
a typhoon--
butterfly effect
a new life
after dying
dried thyme
if nothing else
remember this
Marilyn Fleming
I can attribute my love of haiku and other forms of Asian poetry from a creative writing class I took in 1987. The instructor pulled me aside and told me I had a natural talent for writing haiku. From that point on I was hooked. In 1988 my first haiku was published in Modern Haiku under the tenure of Robert Spiess. I received a remuneration of $1.00 and still have it framed along with the haiku. It was also usual at that time for contributors to receive a free copy of the journal they were published in. In December of 1988 I won first prize in the Hildegarde Janzen Oriental Forms sponsored by “Amelia” for a haiku sequence “Africa Sunrise.” I enjoyed moderate success until Dec of 1989. At that time I took a break from writing for 24 years due to career and family obligations. After I retired, I happily returned to my poetry. From 2012 to the present I have enjoyed writing forms of Asian poetry and have been published in journals, internationally as well as nationally.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
a raven’s eye
the blackened perch
among ruins
first snow flakes . . .
the warmth
of a late-blooming rose
at the table
with wobbly legs
election news
MaryJo Balistreri
How I came to Haiku: What hooked me at first was that haiku was nature-centered and that’s where my heart is. Then it was the challenge of saying something in three lines. What keeps me in is both of those things—the nature, the challenge, and the incredible beauty of a line when sometimes it all comes together. What also keeps me in is that I’ll always be a beginner. Haiku is always new—subject matter, form, new understanding which to me is like life flow. All that led to a change of life attitude of seeing the small, the unnoticed—the awareness of life that had completely bypassed me. I’d be lost without it at this point.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Opening Performance in Nichô-machi” Kikugawa Eizan. 1812. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
~~~~~~~~~~~~
violins in music store
a bumble bee sleeps
inside every one
Mike Shepley
I first became familiar with the form of haiku in Mr. Sillonis Creative Writing class at YVHS (50 years ago) in Concord CA, Jr. year. At first it seemed easy, and I liked it. Then I saw one had to fold more meaning in fewer words and I came to like it even better in time. Having a sansei girlfriend in Sr. year only increased interest in Japanese culture & art, including, of course, haiku.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Autumn's Heart
For centuries in Japan, seven grasses have symbolized autumn. I sketched and colored each one to know them intimately. Leafing through the Man’yōshū and the Kokinshū, I discovered that autumn verses greatly outnumber those of spring and that the seven grasses bloom or wither in many poems of romantic love. I didn’t realize at the time that these plants I’d learned to cherish would soon be dust in my hands.
seven grasses
fade before their time--
waiting for you
I feel only a chill wind
touching my face
Published in Ribbons Fall 2019: Volume 15, Number 3:
Nostos
memories
wash up like seaweed
on distant shores
who will untangle
yesterday from today
Making my way up the hill to my childhood home, I catch a glimpse of blue shutters folded like butterfly wings, the swing with its escape into sky, the barn where I hid when mother and father fought. I enter through the back door of the house, using the key concealed among the broken flowerpots, and race through the half-dark hallway to my room. Dragging my toys from under the bed, I bring each plaything into the light.
orange-blossom air
wafts through a window . . .
I rock
my doll to sleep
with an old lullaby
I step into the garden, close my eyes, and catch whispers of the past borne on Zephyr’s breath. After years of absence from my birthplace, I feel like another intruder: successive waves of invaders have colonized this island at the crossroads of continents. For more than half a century, it has been divided in two by the Green Line.
a solano bush,
brutally cut back
by a neighbor,
leans against
a rust-eaten fence
Published in Haibun Today June 2019, Volume 13, Number 2:
Dru Philippou
When studying for my MFA at Naropa University, a teacher remarked on a short poem of mine and said it was like an haiku. I had never heard of haiku and so I researched it and experimented with the form. My first published poem was an haiku. I then experimented with the other Japanese genres such as haibun, tanka, then tanka prose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
hunger moon
the shoddy crackle
of the carry-out bag
river rising
every bed full
in the ICU
it is
what it is
morning light
Jennifer Hambrick
My work writing Japanese short forms stems from my work writing free verse poetry, which stems from my work
as a professional arts journalist and broadcaster. A few years ago, I "discovered" Japanese short forms and just started writing them. Most poets write either free verse poetry of Japanese short forms. I do not limit myself or my writing. Constantly traversing a spectrum of wordsmithery keeps things fresh.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Uchiyamashita, Okayama” Kawase Hasui. 1923. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
~~~~~~~~~~~~
pockmarked and gray like me April snow piles
frozen raindrops
on the pine
holiday glitter
under the bird feeder
rabbit and squirrel
lunch date
Wilda W. Morris
I became interested in writing haiku many years ago when I was introduced to its modern English forms, which often sounded more poetic than 17-syllables forced into three lines of 5/7/5, the formula I learned in high school. During the early months of the pandemic, I had trouble writing longer poems, but wrote more haiku on my almost-daily walks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
a new color
on the palette -
pandemic gray
polar vortex
the snow unbroken
by animal tracks
cloudburst . . .
the faint shrill
of a siren
Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
I wrote three or four poems for college and high school assignments. Years later I decided to try writing poetry again. I soon ran out of ideas for both free verse and rhymed verse poetry. I then switched to haiku. Since the only haiku I had ever seen were seventeen syllables in a five/seven/five pattern, this is what I wrote. When I started to submit these to journals, a couple of editors told me
about another type of haiku known as English Language Haiku. I began to read articles about this type and eventually I discovered other Japanese poetic forms such as senryu, haiga, haibun, and tanka.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Courtesan Tsukioka of the of the Hyogoya," Ichirakutei Eisui,1797, Art Institute, Chicago
