A Sense of Place: THE SHORE – taste

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1. Nice blog. Sounds like every one is interesting for picnic. A new spot discover “The Bhit Khori Beach” near mubarak village . It was awesome place and people are going and enjoy there picnic.

2. Sorry this is a bit delayed – have been offline for a while – but thanks, as ever, Katherine and congratulations to everyone on another great set!

   1. thanks Helen!

3. What a wonderful collection!

   Congratulations Kathy Munro! Congratulations to all authors!

   1. thanks for this, Tsanka!

4. Thank you. What a joy to have my words among this cast of poets. Thank you KJ !

   1. thanks for submitting, Margo! couldn’t do anything without all these fabulous submissions! kj

5. Round rocks hard Air and sea I taste the sun

   1. Hi Ian!
      do submit on the Contact Form – now I am looking for the sense of touch at the shore…

6. Thank you Kathy for the inclusion in this collection! The haiku and comments are very enjoyable and insightful. Keep up the great work everyone!

   1. thanks for these kind words, Lamart!

7. thanks again Kathy . . . it’s good we are staying near the water, with all the wildfires! my heart goes out to California and the Pacific Northwest. Fire Season starts soon.

   1. thanks for this Ken!

8. I am enjoying the sense of “taste” in all these places. It is almost like traveling. Thanks

   1. thanks for this Kathleen!

9. By the way, a haiku of mine which came out of KJ’s Haiku Windows earlier in the year is in the latest Failed Haiku so thanks again KJ.
   http://www.haikuhut.com/FailedHaikuIssue32.pdf

   1. Congrats! 🙂

   2. congrats!

10. I guess, having stuck with ‘my’ lake here in Macedonia, taste and smells are less prevalent than those by the sea, so it was good to be reminded of saltiness in nearly all of these poems. Particularly resonant, and poignant, for me:
    .
    Srinavasa Rao Sambangi’s
    .
    beachside fish stall
    a hungry vendor
    sells the last piece
    .
    and Kath Abela Wilson’s
    .
    old salt
    he knows each sea
    by its taste
    .
    Thank you, Kathy, for including mine again.

    1. thanks so much for sharing this, Ingrid!

11. Thanks Kathy for a wonderful selection! Thank you so much for including mine.

    1. thanks for submitting, Christina!

12. I agree with Alan Summers, that this is a fine collection of haiku. The one’s that stick with me are: “beach house” by CR Harper, “lakeside” by Valentina Ranaldi-Adams, “Scheveningen pier” by Michael Smeer, and “fresh oyster” by Margaret Walker. I am happy to be included in this collection.

    1. thanks so much for sharing, Pat!

13. Thank you for these fun, lovely haiku and for selecting mine, Kathy!

    1. thanks for this, Mary Ellen!

14. .
    When many of us think of taste it’s often about food or drink, unless we are in a highly insecure situation, which I have some experience.
    .
    As the exercise was to write about taste in connection with a body of water, namely a shore or river, in particular, I tend to think about our hunter-gatherer ancestry, and not other areas of taste. After all, bodies of water offer up the idea of fresh fish, seafood, useful vegetation that is edible etc…
    .
    But of course around bodies of water are other aspects and dangers, man-made or other-animal risk. I’ve tasted fear, over-load of adrenaline before, during, after, and dealing with sudden death is intensely taste, and smell, and memory-invasive for months after, for complete strangers just dying naturally but suddenly.
    .
    I’ve smelt and tasted copper and iron, ingredients of blood, mostly my own, but not always: The smell of blood can be a taste, not literally licking it off someone or something. Yes, we don’t actually taste/smell metals in isolation, it’s about our sweat and oils, of course.
    .
    When doing checks and searches for suspect explosive devices, mostly away from bodies of water, you get a sense of smell regarding potential atmosphere aka risk factors. When I was trained, along with others, with an officer attached to the Special Air Services, it was important to know the smell of marzipan wasn’t good, because it wasn’t a birthday cake it was old-fashioned, out of date very old explosives that have sweated, and therefore more volatile than usual. You get to use your mouth as well as your nose, without making physical contact e.g. ingesting, to sense danger in different surroundings and situations.
    .
    Like a dog that can taste smells like colour, perhaps, I could taste and smell “wavelengths” or “ripples” of tension. This was very much the case when unbeknownst to me, when I was in St Pauls, Bristol (England) I saw no danger, no large groups, no tension, but the hairs on my neck rose, and my skin prickled, and I could taste extreme danger. It was the April 1980s riots due to extreme incompetency by the police (I can’t say more, but I was ashamed). Oddly Raymond Mighty because a musician later, alongside many others, on the wrong side of the law, and Smith and Mighty was part of the early wave of the Bristol Sound – a phenomenon I felt I’d never experience, but heard about amusingly, while working in Liverpool for an artists’ agency had Paul McCartney’s brother on their books.
    .
    I guess there are numerous types of taste and tastes, but predominately as we are a food obsessed society from time immemorial, it’s first and foremost with us.
    .
    By the way I am not the only haiku poet that has checked and dealt with explosives, and other security situations, it’s not that uncommon, that’s the state of the world, too many of us are put into situations that should never be normalised “into” the 21st century, let along the post-World War(s) latter half of the 20th Century.
    .
    Wikipedia (and by the way I donated a full £10, but everyone else could give just £2, and only once a year, and save this resource we all use, even in tandem with others) says this about taste:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste
    .
    I guess they should also include ‘sixth sense’ which is as much a taste, as it is with other partner senses.
    .
    So we are first and foremost hunter-gatherers, and when in a non-successful (non-feudal) system early humans spent the majority of every single day-lit entity (seven days a week) searching and acquiring food, and water. Later, when retail came about, taste became a mental aberration, and some spend hours a day, and lots of money television or internet buying unnecessary extravagances, because we have been taught, however badly, taste.
    .
    This feature is so successful I cannot individually comment, but I am sure others will pick examples, and even with overlap, we should develop an interesting dialog.
    .
    What I found interesting is that there were at least 31 direct mentions of ‘salt’ and many more indirect suggestions, including my own. But also many other food or liquid tasting examples plus ones that I couldn’t let go without acknowledging, however fine everyone’s haiku were!
    .
    .
    beach house
    digging for shells
    in the omelette
    .
    C.R. Harper
    .
    .
    A wonderful use of using the middle line as a pivot/swing/hinge thus making the verse an invisible four line poem.

    beach house
    digging for shells
    .
    digging for shells
    in the omelette
    .
    .
    Beach houses make me think of the Betty Blue/37° 2 le matin French film, and I automatically become sad. It was my first French film (I think) and I was taken by my French girlfriend to an art centre movie house, not knowing how the movie opened. I adore the soundtrack too, it plays into my often deep melancholy. Wonderful haiku, and making the pivot line device fresh and original.
    .
    .

    aloha oe…
    slowly steamed lau lau’s
    laced with sadness
    .
    Pris Campbell
    .
    .
    A sensuousness of a poem even before I break it down. Wonderful use of poetic technique and using a strong verb (for haiku perhaps) to make it swat my senses. It would also make for a fantastic first half of a tanka, something to ponder too, but immensely satisfying on my tongue, both the physical one, and my mind’s tongue.
    .
    .

    surging waves…
    the taste
    of her tan lines
    .
    Chad Lee Robinson
    .
    .
    Well, I’ve never tasted Dakota substances in any form or manner so I’ll take Chad’s word he was Burt Lancaster to a Dakota Deborah Kerr! A brilliant haiku!
    .
    .
     

     

    peppermint
    crunching my stick
    of Brighton rock
    .

    Christine Eales
    .
    .
    This switches on the taste button(s) from Richard Attenborough and the original and best Brighton Rock movie, to the first excitement of a seaside holiday and imbibing via shockwaves the iconic Brighton Rock stick of candy with either the town’s name ALL THE WAY through, or I LOVE YOU or another name or message. Adding peppermint brings a sharp tang of loved and loathed flavor used in chocolate and other candies, and toothpaste! There are even numerous peppermint drinks alcoholic or free, but never of that double-edged taste and smell forever wrapped around each other in a demonic death twirl. Wonderful! Using the sound as a taste is genius, but Christine, as I told her in the company of Heron’s Nest John Stevenson, has a knack of combining senses that are original and fresh.
    .
    .

    day at the sea we decide on a Magnum lunch
    .

    David Jacobs
    .
    .
    I immediately envision Dirty Harry at Clacton on Sea or Margate instead of San Francisco, and the smell of cordite for a mid-day meal. I’m on sensory overload! 🙂 Would it be better or more sinister without ‘lunch’, I can’t say, but I do get Hypoglycaemia sometimes. The alliteration is doubly neat (no pun intended) because it’s not just day and decide (three d’s) but sea(side) and de(cide) aural and perceived rhyme, and a hidden pseudo-d or useful hard consonance with Magnum. It’s all too 9mm for me, or is it? Superb and deadly, that’s David’s haiku as a rule. 🙂
    .
    .
     
    winter sea
    the taste of snow
    on my lips
    .
    Eufemia Griffo
    .
    .
    Poetic technique as well, but just beautiful, beautiful.

    1. Having worked in chemistry labs I remember the smell of almonds was concerning because it can indicate the presence of cyanide, but can also come from many other compounds such as benzaldehyde (from almonds and maybe explosives). Part of the link between taste and smell is that the nose detects volatile compounds but these also enter the mouth where they dissolve in saliva and are also detected by taste buds, along with all sorts of other things. In humans, the brain combines these signals with other things like texture (mouthfeel – such as crunchy or creamy), colour or perception. For example when companies test new flavour recipes they make sure the testers do not know the colours of the samples, because if for instance it looks like strawberry this will influence how you perceive it tastes.

       1. The SAS attached officer didn’t go into crowd attacks, just explosives – general and anti-personnel – and arson devices designed to melt someone’s hand, left in retail places, and torches, and other disguised stuff, and the lovely mercury switches, and that not everything smells. 🙂
          .
          Ah, I remember a revolting taste test by a leading supermarket. I sincerely hope they didn’t put those vile and cheating things out. Still angry about what some of them try to get away with.
          .
          Taste, smell, saliva, our trigger hairs, all designed for a simple world of foraging and staying alive from attacking animals, humans and otherwise. Bristol city council is planning this for Spring next year I hear. 🙂
          .
          Alan

       2. Your comment, Mark, regarding the link between taste and smell where certain smells enter the mouth and dissolve as saliva, reminds me that both cats and dogs (possibly the whole feline and canine world), can be observed using both their nose and open mouth when they come across an interesting smell — usually of another passing animal. For several seconds afterwards, they will keep their mouths open as if savouring the scent for longer, possibly for identification purposes. Maybe humans have lost this faculty, along with the sixth sense.

          1. wonderful comments – thank you all – Alan, Mark, Ingrid

15. .
    .

     
    every flavor in the rainbow snow cone stand
    .
    Robin Smith
    .
    .
    Even if I didn’t read into ‘rainbow’ as a just statement for fairness across all genders, and to be honest, across all inferred or institualised differences, that extremists on both wings of politics etc… have used hundreds of years before Hitler and Stalin etc… it’s delightfully sensuousness in flavor. And that’s the point, perhaps, that declaration that we are all flavors, all equal, just different. Hard for some to stomach, but they are the kind of people (bigots to be blunt, but I’ll leave it at that level of bluntness) that I’d leave alone but would never want kids to be near.
    .
    It’s a wonderful haiku, falling into the spectrum of haiku and senryu together, just on one level. But if I read it correctly, or if I don’t, it’s an incredible poem, a mini-Howl but more succinct, and leaving time to do good things, as it’s only six seconds long, plenty of time to be kind to our neighbours. 🙂

    .
    .

    beachside fish fry stall
    a hungry vendor
    sells the last piece
    .
    Srinivasa Rao Sambangi
    .
    .
    This is both lovely as it’s a selfless act, but of concern, as a hardworking human hands over his own meal to provide cash to his family, maybe for medical treatment for all I know. Highly moving, deeply poignant, and a great indirect take on taste, as the taste buds overact in lost anticipation of a meal.
    .
    .
     

    beachside café
    the rotten taste
    of your lies
    .
    Vandana Parashar
    .
    .
    Wow! Lies, whether known instantly or at a later time, leave a mental and emotional bad taste, but also can generate a bad taste sensation in mouth and stomach. Powerful.
    .
    .

     
    summer flavor of the sun sand bass
    .
    Victor Ortiz
    .
    .
    Fun alliteration all the way through! Bass could be the fish including ‘sand bass’, (probably not Courage beer), or a musical instrument that produces a bass sound. Perhaps all three, or at least two of them, on a beach party with House or Trance music! Wow! Poetically masterful, conjuring up taste via alliteration, brilliant, outstanding!
    .
    .
    I am sure we’ve all left out areas of taste, but it’s still a wonderful thematic lunchbox or fish supper of a haiku collection that will be of great benefit to those wishing to expand their senses and topics in haiku.
    .
    .
    Alan
     

    1. Yes, Vandana’s one leapt our at me also. I’d call this an antihaiku because although formally indistinguishable from a haiku it is actually doing the opposite.

       1. Ah, anti, as in alternative? As ‘anti’ doesn’t actually mean ‘against’ as in a negative and destructive manner. More of a Nick Avis haiku perhaps?
          .
          Alan

          1. Well, I think some haiku can try to undermine the reader’s expectations, after drawing them in, as Vandana’s one does. I’ll check out Nick Avis.

             1. Nick Avis, and the Canadian wave of haiku writers, really shook up the complacency that abounded with haiku in topic and approach.
                .
                .
                re:
                .
                beachside café
                the rotten taste
                of your lies
                .
                Vandana Parashar
                .
                .
                It’s unfortunately pretty powerful as many of us will have experienced something unpleasant while on holiday, and at a seaside resort, from a friend, family member, or partner.
                .
                It’s the fact it’s somewhere where you think you have gotten away from the negative aspects of home and work life. It’s the opposite of Shirley Valentine in a way. We expect to get away from problems not have them come to fruition or full reveal in paradise.
                .
                As I’d say this is senryu, which can pull anything it likes from the haiku tradition, it can allude to the holiday season of Summer to slam its case home all the more forcefully.
                .
                It’s well put together, and makes for uncomfortable reading, which a good senryu should, and it’s not an unfair attack on a person known or unknown, but a revelation, and we can commiserate.
                .
                I must ask Susan Burch what she is saying, but I found it very powerful as well, and did lay my own interpretation on it:
                http://sonicboomjournal.wixsite.com/sonicboom/contests
                .
                .
                Mark Gilbert says:
                .
                “…some haiku can try to undermine the reader’s expectations, after drawing them in…”
                .
                .
                That’s a fascinating comment, could you expand a little more on that?
                .
                As haiku draws from senryu, and tanka, more and more, so the other genres do the same, and it brings up some intriguing dynamics, that a plain first stage of Shiki’s suggestion for writing haiku cannot do.
                .
                Alan

             2. I also get a strong metallic taste from Vandana’s verse, as I can remember a few beach resort breaks that didn’t fare well. Our reaching for perfection often falls short, partly as we head into challenging directions, when home is often practical. 🙂

          2. (couldn’t reply to your message so will do so here)
             Yes I agree that Vandana’s is a senryu but that’s not to say it doesn’t belong in this collection. To me hers reads like she was writing a traditional haiku when something happened which upset her but she carried on writing.
             My one from last week was meant to draw the reader in with L1/2 describing an idyllic scene which was undermined by L3 bringing the poem to jolting halt with one syllable, harsh consonants, and most of all a vernacular rather than a traditional haiku word (Vandana’s also uses this last technique). Must stop now – I’m being too verbose (like my haiku from this week).

             1. Mark Gilbert said:
                .
                “Yes I agree that Vandana’s is a senryu but that’s not to say it doesn’t belong in this collection.”
                .
                .
                Oh, yes, I strongly agree, and have long been an advocate of strongly composed senryu on a par with haiku, hence I took up the approach to judge the Sonic Boom journal’s senryu contest, as I can’t judge haiku contests due to conflict of interest.
                .
                .
                Mark Gilbert said:
                .
                “To me hers reads like she was writing a traditional haiku when something happened which upset her but she carried on writing.”
                .
                .
                beachside café
                the rotten taste
                of your lies
                .
                Vandana Parashar
                .
                .
                Intriguing! I just saw a handy setting, whether fact, fictional, or a blend of the two. Holidays at the seaside, be they in our own countries, if not landlocked, or overseas, have always brought both joy and discord. What intrigues me is the question whether the perpetrator is present, at least in the same holiday resort, or left behind etc…
                .
                .
                Mark Gilbert said:
                .
                “My one from last week was meant to draw the reader in with L1/2 describing an idyllic scene which was undermined by L3 bringing the poem to jolting halt with one syllable, harsh consonants, and most of all a vernacular rather than a traditional haiku word (Vandana’s also uses this last technique).”
                .
                .
                secluded beach
                a slew of seaweed
                stinks
                .
                Mark Gilbert (UK)
                https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2018/07/25/a-sense-of-place-the-shore-smell/
                .
                .
                Then it’s an interesting technique, and used in other media from written stories to filmed ones, and highly effective.
                .
                Alan

             2. this is all amazing – thank you both!

16. I’ve printed it and will spend a delightful afternoon with this delicious read!! Thank you, Kathy

    1. enjoy!!

17. thanks Kathy for this amazing collection of haiku!

    my favourite…east or west, Alan is the best. 😉

    breaking my fast
    the mermaid’s kiss
    of samphire

    1. Wow, thanks Hifsa! 🙂
       .
       I’ve really got back into the food that sings the sea to me nowadays.
       .
       Alan

    2. thanks for this Hifsa!

18. Dear Kathy, Greetings! so delicious – taste of every haiku here. Appreciating all the talents here.

    Thanks for including mine.
    with regards
    S.Radhamani

    1. thanks for your kind words!

19. Thank you, Kathy! Happy to be included in this tasty buffet of haiku!

    1. thanks for submitting, Mary!

20. Delightful tastes from around the world 🙂 a marvellous read.
    *
    I remember the taste of Alan Summer’s poem it was only a few weeks ago I was nibbling samphire from a cliff edge at Porthcawl.
    *
    breaking my fast
    the mermaid’s kiss
    of samphire
    *
    but I’m sure there’s more to that salty kiss 🙂
    *
    Thank you Kathy for including my verse.

    1. Hi Carol,
       .
       The samphire I had was not 100% fresh, and I had left it a few seconds longer steaming then I should, hence it was literally like kissing a mermaid before her full transformation.
       .
       Alan
       .
       Gosh, Porthcawl, superb nosh! 🙂

       1. I tried freezing some samphire recently – we can sometimes get it from our local fishmonger. I won’t be trying that ever again.

          1. Welsh seaweed for laverbread can be bought as dry wafers and are wonderful, but the structure of samphire works against it I guess.
             .
             Even Russian vodka does successfully freeze, especially if the bottle is 2/3 empty. 🙂

    2. thanks for this, Carol!

21. Thank you for including a taste of my haiku here. So many favorites! I particularly was struck by the haiku by Anna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo, Vishnu Kapoor, Susan Rogers, Lori Zajkowski, Randy Brooks and Will Nixon.

    1. thanks for sharing, Sari!

22. Again, I think it’s difficult to write about taste. A lot of these are about food rather than taste. Others didn’t really try to describe tastes. I loved Alan Summer’s use of metaphor –
    .
    breaking my fast
    the mermaid’s kiss
    of samphire
    .
    and Margaret Walker’s similarly metaphorical
    .
    fresh oyster
    I swallow
    the sea
    .
    as well as Kath Abela Wilson’s
    .
    old salt
    he knows each sea
    by its taste
    .
    Thanks KJ

    1. Thanks Mark, both for selecting mine, and making me into a kigo. 😉
       .
       re:
       “A lot of these are about food rather than taste.”
       .
       Could you expand on that, sounds intriguing.
       .
       re
       .
       fresh oyster
       I swallow
       the sea
       .
       Margaret Walker
       .
       .
       That reminds me of being left alone in Provence for Christmas, and being brave enough to go to a restaurant in the hills, not being able to speak French, and not usually brave to enter foodie places on my own. I had oysters for the first time ever, and forgot I’d been deserted for a couple of hours.
       .
       A long and lonely Christmas in a land I liked but far from home or airport.
       .
       Alan

       1. Forgot to say that I loved Margaret’s haiku, and I was instantly transported to that very first time that was incredible, and has been ever since. 🙂

       2. I just thought I would take this prompt literally and try to write about taste or try to describe taste or write haiku where ‘taste’ was the theme. Others haven’t done that, but if trying to write about taste causes you to write a fantastic haiku about for example riding a bicycle well that’s great, isn’t it?

          To me, your haiku does try – successfully – to describe a taste to someone who perhaps hasn’t experienced it previously (an alien, or someone who can’t smell or who has never visited the coast). Phrases like ‘the smell of the sea’ don’t do this. lt’s not easy. I haven’t really managed it in my submissions.

          1. Mark Gilbert said:
             .
             “I just thought I would take this prompt literally and try to write about taste or try to describe taste or write haiku where ‘taste’ was the theme.”
             .
             .
             Sea of Tranquility
             a mouthful of cotton candy
             dissolves on the tongue
             .
             Mark Gilbert
             .
             .
             Yes, I wanted mine to be ‘taste’ dominated rather than the usual mostly visual that we often default to.
             .
             .
             Mark Gilbert said:
             .
             “Others haven’t done that, but if trying to write about taste causes you to write a fantastic haiku about for example riding a bicycle well that’s great, isn’t it?”
             .
             .
             I think Kathy’s feature will have a great long term effect on how we write and approach haiku. We won’t just do visuals only, but start to introduce more sound, smell, or taste, or combination of two of these.
             .
             .
             Talking about bicycles, I remember when we started to lose some traditional sights, that of the travelling knife-grinder, on a bicycle or small van. And of course those Frenchmen on bicycles selling onions! I thought they had completely disappeared, but then many years later:
             .
             .
             two boys giggle
             as he enters the bike shop …
             the onion seller
             .
             Alan Summers
             First credit: Blithe Spirit vol. 11 no. 3 (2001)
             .
             The Haiku Foundation’s Per Diem: Daily Haiku December 2012 (31 poems): Children
             .
             Anthology credit:
             Stepping Stones:  a way into haiku ed. Martin Lucas (British Haiku Society 2007)
             http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/shop-2/stepping-stones/
             .
             It was my taste buds that reacted as he was up the hill from me and upwind.
             .
             .
             Mark Gilbert said:
             .
             “To me, your haiku does try – successfully – to describe a taste to someone who perhaps hasn’t experienced it previously (an alien, or someone who can’t smell or who has never visited the coast).”
             .
             .
             breaking my fast
             the mermaid’s kiss
             of samphire
             .
             Alan Summers
             Wiltshire, England
             .
             .
             Alan:
             “Ah, perhaps it’s that Craig Raine’s fault!” 🙂
             He’s been highly influential hasn’t he?
             .
             A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979)
             Craig Raine
             http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/a-martian-sends-a-postcard-home/
             .
             .
             Mark Gilbert said:
             .
             “Phrases like ‘the smell of the sea’ don’t do this. lt’s not easy. I haven’t really managed it in my submissions.”
             .
             It’s a good start to put smell, taste, or sound, or touch, in the early draft versions, and then work ‘sidewise’ rocking the haiku draft from side to side until eventually that bit falls out. It isn’t easy, because we have been trained to use those words of ‘tastes, sounds, smells…etc…” as trigger words when we are talking to someone, or a group, or writing about something.
             .
             .
             I had great fun writing about a curry as a poet in a Walled Garden for this anthology:
             “The Sound of Poets Cooking” ed. Richard Krawiec. I must look that recipe up again! 🙂
             .
             .
             Alan

             1. thanks to Alan & Mark, as always, for sharing your comments here – love the discussion, & the links…

23. Thanks for including me in this delicious feast of words!

    1. my pleasure Debbie – thanks so much for submitting!

24. Tasty haiku, KJ. Lots of flavors to savor in this collection. Thanks for including one of mine.

    1. thanks for this Nancy!

25. I was surprised and pleased that mine was chosen for commenting. Thank-you Kathy !!

    1. my pleasure! (mosquitoes like me too!) thanks so much for submitting, Valentina!

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