the baby sweater . . .

the baby sweater
she knitted so long ago
unraveling . . .
one pink strand that she held
in her hands, in her heart

A Hundred Gourds, 2:2, March 2013

death watch . . .

death watch
the sleeping dog
at her bedside

Acorn, issue 30, Spring 2013

old age home . . .

old age home–
she asks me for the purpose
of life . . .
wrapping and unwrapping
gray curls around my fingers

A Hundred Gourds, 2:2, March 2013

my empty glass . . .

kernels, April 2013

After a few hiccups (actually a computer crash), an’ya‘s new online journal kernels is up and running. And she and her team are, bit by bit, recovering more material to include there. I’m happy to be a part of this inaugural issue and wish her continued success in the venture which features all sorts of wonderful Japanese short form poetry, including haiga.

a moth’s wings . . .

 

a moth’s wings
curled around the shamrock . . .
what is this desire
that causes me to cradle
beside you while you sleep

kernels, April 2013

candlelight vigil . . .

In light of this week’s violence–and all the senseless violence we’ve endured during the past few months/years/decades–these recently published haiku seem even more pertinent today than when I wrote them.

candlelight vigil
the distant song of a lark
lifting darkness

frost on the pumpkin the child who might have been

another shooting
a shroud of fog
lingers over morning

A Hundred Gourds, 2:2, March 2013

National Poetry Month . . .

The month’s halfway over, but the celebration (of poetry) just keeps on keepin’ on. And, of course, there’s so much you still can do to be a part of it. Need a little inspiration? You could join the crowd at NaHaiWriMo’s Facebook site for daily haiku prompts. Or sign up for poem-a-day deliveries that land straight in your e-mail inbox. (tiny words is a great way to start off the morning.) Or carry a poem in your pocket. Attend a reading. Write a sonnet (or haibun or tanka).

Last weekend I had a chance to take part in this month-long celebration at the 8th annual Scissortail Literary Festival in Ada, OK, where I discovered the work of some wonderful poets and prose writers and actually had the opportunity to read some of my own work as well. Charged up, I returned home to find the proof of one of my haiga that will be included, along with several of my haiku, in Dos Gatos Press’ Lifting the Sky: An Anthology of Southwestern Haiku and Haiga–due out soon. I also was pleased to see a picture of one of my cherry blossom haiku blooming on the “cherry tree” at the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, which several of my haiku buddies attended last week. And, for April 17–National Haiku Day–the new online journal Kernels is scheduled to appear in cyberspace. Can’t wait!

And, just because it’s finally beginning to feel a lot more like spring these days, here’s one of my haiga that appeared in the March issue of A Hundred Gourds. Happy Poetry Month!

A Hundred Gourds, 2:2, March 2013

internet sightings . . .

The March issue of A Hundred Gourds is out, and, with it, tanka editor Susan Constable has given readers a close look into the work of tanka poet Kozue Uzawa. Uzawa, who emigrated to Canada from Japan in 1971, edits Tanka Canada’s journal Gusts.

In her article, Constable features several selections from Uzawa’s book-length collection of tanka, I’m a Traveler. It’s always a pleasure to be able to read several of a poet’s tanka in one location, and Constable’s response to Uzawa’s work adds even more insight into the experience. Here is one of my favorites of the cited poems:

in the summer sky
shooting stars appear
one after another
I have so many
wishes to make

You can read the entire article for yourself by following this link.

More doings in cyberspace include Aubrie Cox’s most recent “doodleku” challenge, which she’s hosting throughout the remainder of this month on her Yay Words! blog. Each day Aubrie provides a different “doodle” as a prompt her readers can respond to with a short poem. As in the past, several of the poems–and all of the drawings–will be collected into one of Aubrie’s brilliant PDF collections.

Last but not least, there’s a new short-form journal edited by haiku luminary an’ya called kernels starting up. Planned as a quarterly showcase of haiku, haibun, tanka and haiga, kernels will launch its inaugural issue on April 17 in honor of National Poetry Month’s official “Haiku Day.” Submissions are being accepted through the end of March.

nothing in the window . . .

After a month of procrastination, I finally ordered and just received my copy of nothing in the window: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku–the 17th volume in editor Jim Kacian’s annual Red Moon Press series honoring the previous calendar year’s work by English-Language haiku poets.  This is the second year that I’ve had work included in this prestigious anthology, and I am more than honored to see my haibun “Prayer for the Dead,” which first appeared in the April 2012 edition of Contemporary Haibun Online, rubbing shoulders with the words of many haiku poets I admire.

In addition to showcasing 142 haiku, and 30 linked poems (haibun, renku, rengay and sequences), the book contains three critical essays that promise to inform anyone with an interest in reading and writing haiku.  Anthologies like this one not only recap some of the work you may or may not have seen in journals throughout the year but also offer insight into what makes this short form so satisfyingly addictive.  Here are a few of my many favorites, beginning with the monoku that inspired the collection’s name:

nothing in the window is everything

                           –Bob Lucky

day moon
the ghost story
of my ovaries

--Melissa Allen

winding road
for the next eight miles
Coltrane

–Cherie Hunter Day

deeper and deeper into the foxglove dusk

–Lorin Ford

dead of winter
making stock
from the bones

–Jayne Miller

one slip
of the scissors
paper heart

–Roland Packer

folding your laundry
exactly the way
I want you to be

–Claudette Russell

fresh snow
the warmth surrounding
your bones

–Ernest Wit

NaHaiWriMo x 2 . . .

Now that the February edition of National Haiku Writing Month–Michael Dylan Welch’s response to NaNovWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)–is winding to a close, I thought I might reflect on my experience with the phenomenon that brings an international community of haiku writers together to celebrate one of poetry’s shortest forms during the shortest month of the year.

This year, in addition to participating in writing daily haiku to prompts offered in English, I also decided to stretch myself by translating my haiku into French.  Thanks to Facebook’s NaHaiWriMo en français, as well as a Facebook group called Un Haiku par Jour, I was able to cobble together my poems in French as well as English.  Much to my delight, I discovered that some of my haiku actually worked in French as well as in English.

More importantly, this exercise gave me the opportunity to look more closely at how language works: how difficult it can be to translate from one tongue to another; how, on occasion, one language provides an opportunity for double entendre not present in the other; how internal rhyme, assonance and alliteration may present themselves to the poem in one language but be obscured in the other.  The list of revelations goes on, but I won’t bore you with what, I realize, might be exciting to me (a certifiable language nerd who, from time to time, grapples with the vagaries of literary translation) but not necessarily to anyone else.

Suffice it to say that the experience was fulfilling on many levels.  And I’d encourage anyone else who has an interest in writing haiku to take the time to explore these Facebook sites.  (NaHaWriMo continues with haiku prompts throughout the year.)  Particularly because they offer support, a sense of community, and joy in what often can be the most solitary of pastimes–writing.  The added benefit is that you get to read a wide variety of voices with their own unique takes and styles on subjects as varied as love, death, moonlight and madness . . . just to mention a few.

I previously posted my first day of haiku for NaHaWriMo here in both English and French, but I’d like to share a few more I wrote this month that I think were (for different reasons) fairly successful in both languages.  The first one, I am honored to report, will be included in moderator Jessica Tremblay’s review of NaHaiWriMo en français–slated to appear in the April issue of the French Haiku Journal Gong.  

mountain climbing . . .                  escalade . . .
I try to write                                 J’essaie écrire
in two languages                           en deux langues

arpeggio . . .                                   arpeggio . . .
blurring the lines                          brouillant les lignes
between                                         entre
black and white                            noir et blanc

 . . . and today’s haiku (my last in this month-long endeavor) which, thanks to Un Haiku par Jour compatriot Giordano Genghini, I also have an Italian version of:

eat-in kitchen
no way to separate
the head from the heart

manger dans la cuisine                  mangiare in cucina   
impossible de séparer                    impossibile separare
la tête du coeur                               la testa dal cuore