cherry blossoms . . .
the unfinished poem
in my pocket
Honorable Mention, 2012 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival
Haiku Invitational Contest
Each year, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival sponsors an international haiku contest to pay homage to the city’s springtime display of fragrant, blossoming trees. Last year I received a Sakura Award and an Honorable Mention for the two poems I entered, and I’m happy to have received an Honorable Mention again this year.
There are wonderful poems among this year’s winners, many of whom I feel lucky to count as friends. As the dog days of a particuarly doggish summer come to a grateful end and fall and winter approach, it is a pleasure to spend a little time remembering the glory of spring.
About Margaret Dornaus
I’m a writer and a teacher, as well as a haiku-doodler. 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.
My work as a travel writer has appeared in publications from The Dallas Morning News to the Robb Report. You can find examples of my travel writing–as well as excerpts from a travel memoir I’m working on–at my other WordPress site, Travelin’ On.
What more than that do you need to know? Only that I started this blog with an eye toward collaboration. Got a haiku? Send it my way. . . . I’m all about new visions & voices.
Best, Margaret
Haiku-doodle 
Congratulations. 🙂
Thanks, Tawnya.
Congratulations, Margaret! Love this! 🙂
Thanks, Kirsten!
Margaret, very good. It reminds me of a Jim Kacian commentary in which he says if you begin a haiku with a common haiku image, you have to bring the whole boat load for the second image. Your “unfinished poem in my pocket” qualifies totally.
And I think I see the first line of a good novel in “As the dog days of a particuarly doggish summer come to a grateful end…” Congrats on the honorable mention.
Sully
Thank you, dear Sully.
this is wonderful, margaret! congratulations!!
Thank you so much, Angie!
Congrats…wonderful and one we certainly can relate to – those unfinished poems inside us.
jld
Hi, Janet! Good to hear from you, and thank you. I like your new blog!
thanks, and do stop by again sometime. it’s always nice when someone other than a spammer visits, lol!
aloha Margaret – pocket poems – oh, I do like those. unfinished as well as finished. this one ranks right up there for me. cool.
I’m working on another pocket poem too. it may wait till after the 30 Days of Septemder Haiga tho. . .
and just so you know your Moon Viewing Party Haiga – wow. I like that a lot. I like that you went out of the image, into the image and mixed with the image to create the haiku. outstanding imo. and way fun too. aloha
Oh, hi, Rick! And thank you! High praise from the master of haiga! Check back here after midnight, as I’ve plugged your Haiga-fest!
Cheers, M.
i’m far from a master. …i’ll keep aiming to get there tho. just like you with haiga like this one.
cool and thank you on the Haiga-fest Event. i’m trying to figure out if i should start Sept. 1 with the planet when it begins (which is i believe in an hour or two from now) or when i begin – in about 26 hours from now. sheesh. being among the last places on the planet to go into the new day can be strange sometimes. altho… it’s fun too.
aloha. and oh. yeah. i meant to say way cool on your award(s). most excellent. aloha.