Ekphrasti-ku with Guest Editor Pippa Phillips & Introduction to Finding Peace and Contemplation… in quiet spaces

Ekphrasti-ku with Guest Editor Pippa Phillips & Introduction to Finding Peace and Contemplation… in quiet spaces

I would like to thank Guest Editor Pippa Phillips for two wonderful months of remarkable art & poetry, & now welcome back accomplished poet & photographer Marietta McGregor, who returns to share her photos with us for the next few weeks… happy writing!

PLEASE NOTE: In an attempt to make things easier for our Guest Editors, we are now asking all poets to please include both their name & residence as they would like it to appear in the column in the ‘Poem’ box with the poems… thanks, kj

Introduction to Finding Peace and Contemplation… in quiet spaces with Guest Editor Marietta McGregor

At times in our lives, fast-moving events of our day-to-day existence may become overwhelming. Between work and family responsibilities, daily needs and doomscrolling, days rush by in a breakneck blur and we sometimes end the week with a sense of ‘where did that go?’ We’re surrounded by the wonders of our shared universe. Maybe it’s time to become immersed in the enjoyment of one aspect of this spectacular world which amazes, delights and refreshes us. We can marvel at the night sky or clouds by day, cheer a ladybug as it climbs a twig and opens its wings, dangle our feet in a cool river, rest in a tree’s benevolent shade, stroke velvety green moss, smell ozone freshness at the coast, crunch through frosty grass, listen to morning birdsong, taste a last autumn apple. Small pauses in quotidian life may be devoted to living slower, using every sense, and sharing our pleasure through poetry. Simple gifts.

Each week for the next few weeks there will be a photographic prompt on the theme of ‘Finding peace and contemplation. . .’ with images capturing moments when we might seek inspiration if the going gets tough. I look forward to reading your personal response to the moments you’ve discovered.

next week’s theme: …in a second-hand bookshop

It’s great to be back with you. I hope you enjoy coming along as we seek peace and contemplation in various places and activities. This week, who can resist being drawn into a second-hand bookshop? The alluring scent of old books is a complex blend of volatile organic compounds released as lignin, cellulose, leather, parchment, inks and gums exposed to air, light and damp slowly break down and filter into the air. When you open a book or enter a library, you may smell sweet vanilla like the orchid pods used in cooking. Or there may be woody, tobacco, chocolate and coffee notes. A word has been coined to describe the scent – bibliosmia. The beautiful old bookshop pictured is in the city of Limoges. Looking forward to your haiku about books, bookshops and libraries you love and the thoughts they inspire.

The deadline is midnight Eastern Standard Time, Saturday March 05, 2022.

Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry. (The Submit button will not be available until the Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in.) With your poem, please include any special formatting requirements & your name & residence as you would like it to appear in the column. A few haiku will be selected for commentary each week. Please note that by submitting, you agree that your work may appear in the column – neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent. All communication about the poems that are posted in the column will be added as blog comments.

below is Pippa’s commentary for “Hanuman Bearing the Mountaintop with Medicinal Herbs”:

Perhaps due to its rich poetic lineage, including suggestive short forms of poetry, or due to the familiarity of Buddhist thought, India has become a global center for haiku in English and its native languages. Over the years, a number of figures introduced Japanese micropoetry to India. Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Laureate poet, wrote a travelogue based on his 1916 visit to Japan, thereby introducing haiku in Bengali, while poet Subramaniya Bharati introduced haiku to a Tamil audience. Poets composed and translated haiku into Assamese, Gujarati, Urdu, and Panjabi. The poet Agyeya composed haiku in Hindi, and Dr. Satya Bhushan Varma, the first professor of Japanese language and literature in India, served as a translator, created a Japanese-Hindi dictionary, and established a bimonthly publication on haiku. Haiku was widely discussed and translated in Hindi in the 1960s and ‘70s.  Today, haiku is widely enjoyed and written in Marathi, Malayalam, Tamizh and other regional languages.

Indian poets continue to dominate English-language haiku as well. Triveni Haikai India was founded by Kala Ramesh (its current director), along with other founding members Geethanjali Rajan, K. Ramesh, Kashinath Karmakar, Paresh Tiwari, Pravat Kumar Padhy, Rohini Gupta, Sanjuktaa Asopa, and Shloka Shankar. It is hosted by a huge team of 40 members, who keep the various features current. Triveni Haiku India is named after the confluence of three rivers – the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the Sarasvati – and the organization  serves as an association for Japanese, Indian, and haiku poets from other nationalities. You can find out more about it here. Notable journals of Indian origin include HaikuKATHA, Sonic Boom and Cafe Haiku.

Haiku poet Kala Ramesh, who was trained in the Carnatic and Hindustani Classical Music, has brought her musical training to bear on the aesthetics of haiku. In her writings on haiku for the British Haiku Society, Kala Ramesh speaks of rasa (रस), a term from Indian aesthetics, which means something like the flavor of a piece of art. “The most important aspect of rasa is that it lingers on long after the stimulus has been removed.” Rasa is what makes a breath-long poem resonate into the years. I would like to highlight a few poems this week whose rasa lingered long after the poems.

carrying devotion inside outside
samadhi

(Samadhi is derived from the Sanskrit sama, meaning “together,” and dhi, meaning “mind.” A state of intense concentration achieved through meditation and devotion to the Divine.)

Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India

Is the divine within or without, real or unreal or ideal? Samadhi, the poet suggests, is a matter of negotiating the location of one’s faith. It is carried – the first word of the poem, as if devotion were separable from the self, something contained inside of a larger self – or perhaps the divine is a seed from which the self grows, and samadhi is achieved when one makes contact with that core.

on an endless quest of self musk deer

स्वयं की अंतहीन खोज में कस्तूरी मृग

Teji Sethi
India

There is a story about a musk deer – it comes across the smell of musk and searches everywhere it can for the scent, but is unable to locate its source. In its frantic hunt, it slips from the top of a rock to its death. The animal’s wounds let out its musk, and the animal realizes too late that the scent it had been looking for came from within itself. The poet alludes to this myth in this monoku, also thereby poaching a seasonal reference. Tapping into myths or historic motifs leads to a sense of deep resonance.

made to carry
the mountain meant to climb
womanhood

Vandana Parashar
India

These phrases are constructed in an exquisite manner, so as to force a variety of cracks that force irresolvable parsings – was the mountain made to carry, or the woman? Does the ‘made’ have the sense of being forced to a purpose, or constructed for a purpose? Was the mountain intended to climb, or be climbed? There is no clear way up this poem – here womanhood is conceived as a labyrinth of switchbacks and impossible choices.

on his shoulder
an ICU bed for her –
time travel

Daya Bhat
Bangalore, India

This poem works best in its ekphrastic connection to “Hanuman Bearing the Mountaintop with Medicinal Herbs.” Instead of a mountaintop full of herbs, the protagonist has an ICU bed, and it sits on his shoulder – where Rama sat on Hanuman’s shoulder. Rather than moving quantities of space, the poet wants to move time, transport the patient back to a time of health. The surreal image of a man with an ICU bed carrying dreams of time travel distorts the perspective of the reader, the protagonist’s efforts outsize and godlike.

searching for संजीवनी his firm mind knows no calculation

(संजीवनी – Sanjeevani (the magic herb) written in Hindi)

Richa Sharma
India

When Hanuman went searching for the sanjeevani he needed to heal his master, he did not know how to identify the herb, and so brought the entire mountaintop to Rama. He meets his self-imposed problem with an outside solution. Hanuman’s search can be compared to the poet’s search for their poem’s final shape, or the right kigo word – here, it is sanjeevani, serving as a poetic as well as bodily salve.

sand pail : the weight of our dream castles

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India

Whether or not the sand pail is empty, the scale of things has been shrunk down from a mountain, the myth reduced to a child’s fairy tale. It’s easy to spend the day carrying around beach sand to dream up castles with, but it’s hard – impossible – to make the castle last. Our lives unspool from our fingers too fast to catch. As parents we know this, and try to prepare our children, take on their dreams as our own – but parenthood is just another sand castle, your best intentions torn down by the inevitable tide.

after the Terukkuttu
Hanuman pedals home
with Sita on the pillion

(Terukkuttu is a street theatre practised in Tamil Nadu state of India)

R. Suresh babu
India

The magic realism of this poem is striking – it conjures the image in bright, primary colors, a shasei sketch by an artist whose vision is too electric to be muted to mere realism. Aren’t our myths real, after all, if they take part in our daily life? Like us, Hanuman and Sita watch stories – perhaps they’ve even come from watching a story about their own lives. Although they have been shrunk down to the size of humans, Hanuman and Sita still play out their roles, Hanuman a loyal helpmeet, Sita in a place of observation.

growing shadow
the weight of a day
as the sun sets

Ravi Kiran
India

I have seen many haiku play with the idea of the weight of light and shadow; here the weight of light is associated with the passage of time. The poet juxtaposes shadow, which is a lack (of light), and the weight of a day, which is a surplus (of mass). Without directly referring to it, we are confronted with a sundial, measuring slow minutes with its shadow.

i. muhth-er
the stem of a rose
Doubled-over

Firdaus Parvez
India

The first line of this poem is a specification: the IPA pronunciation of mother, setting up our expectations for the poet’s strange definition. The stem of the rose is doubled over – as if with weight? As if with pain? The phrase provokes an immediate image of overheavy burdens. The vexed position of the rose is man-made, external, is perhaps mere caprice resulting in cruelty. Vital as motherhood is, mothers are still forced to find what little space society affords them both in terms of space and in terms of their self-definitions.

silently chanting hanuman chalisa
he signs consent
for surgery

Padma Rajeswari
Mumbai, India

 

covid ward
i gasp the Hanuman
chalisa in fits

Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, India

 

Hanuman Chalisa …
the infinite potency to shatter
my ‘i’ and my ‘if’

Lakshmi Iyer
India

Several poets made reference to the hanuman chalisa, according to Subir Ningthouja, “a devotional hymn in praise of Hanuman.” The way that it contributes to the various poems reminds me of a kigo word – perhaps it can be added to the Indian national saijiki. The first two poems present the chant as a lifeline to their poetic protagonists – the first silent, the second fighting breathlessness. In Ningthouja’s poem, the break of “Hanuman chalisa” in the second line replicates the struggle to breathe. Lakshmi Iyer’s poem is all divine – the self shattered into counterparts determined by the alternate lives represented by “if” – but the divine seed, standing against the shattering potency of life, with only a divine chant to invoke for protection.

& here are the rest of the selections:

all my skipped stones
not one toe on the foot
of the mountain

Alan Peat
Biddulph, United Kingdom

 

his questions
about my extra weight…
lipoedema

Deborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn, Germany

 

new moon–
an empty circle
by the ink brush

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

army ants
in death spiral
mountain breeze

Chittaluri Satyanarayana
Hyderabad, India

 

uroboro this urge for spring

Daniela Misso
Italia

 

twist in the tale –
a righteous army
in the monkey god’s heart

Neera Kashyap
India

 

Zoo, how the monkey
shrugs and scoops the mountain
in his hand like mud

Sarah Davies
Bedford

 

The burden of life
yet another patch
on a worn coat

Dejan Ivanovic
Lazarevac, Serbia

 

in
mother’s saari
within

(saari is a six-yard-long dress of Indian women)

Devoshruti Mandal
India

 

mandala
mom’s tears troubling
our universe

Florin C. Ciobica
Romania

 

weight of my past
I still carry him
up and down the stairs

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California

 

dancing in the Ramayana
a princess next to Sita
I want to go back

Genie Nakano
Gardena, CA

 

the weight of inaction blue moon

Sushama Kapur
Pune, India

 

the regreening of spring mountaintop

Lafcadio
USA

 

shaking off the day rag doll

Margaret Tau
New Bern, North Carolina

 

leaving all the baggage
at shrine’s door ~
deep winter

Melanie Vance
USA

 

mortal
passing with time
I carry nothing

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

again first time our local walk alone

Maurice Nevile
Canberra, Australia

 

hanging on me all missed moments

Mirela Brăilean
Romania

 

inside out a mother carrying children

Pamela Jeanne
Canada

 

mountain mist
the weight
of what
was

P. H. Fischer
Vancouver, Canada

 

vuoto a perdere…
quel peso nel mio grembo

vacuum to lose…
that weight in my womb

Giuliana Ravaglia
Bologna (Italia)

 

blood sucked from the cherry I spit the pit of summer illness

Ash Lippert
South Carolina, USA

 

hospice bed
the soothing scent
of loved ones

Sue Courtney
Orewa, New Zealand

 

Hanuman –
the poet inside
every warrior

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

her ink sketch
of a sleeping lion –
on my get-well card

Dan Campbell
Virginia

 

in the twilight
chasing pieces
of her mind

Bona M. Santos
Los Angeles, CA

 

happy hour…
drowning the monkeys
on our backs

Jeff Leong
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

 

chasing pheasants the tail end of tomorrow

Susan Burch
Hagerstown, MD

 

tailed by
an army of Big Pharma
I grow my own.

J E Jeanie Armstrong
Canterbury UK

 

on my l  o  n  g path
I carry dreams in my heart
and songs on my lips

Ram Chandran
India

 

circle in circle
I’d tell you the story
but it’s a long tale

Margie Gustafson
Lombard, IL USA

 

eternal tale
hard pill
to swallow

Andrew Diamond
Kansas City, USA

 

permission to go there daydream

Tim Cremin
Massachusetts

 

cerulean blue sky…
collapsed cherry cake
in the errand boy’s bag

Keiko Izawa
Yokohama, Japan

 

lifelong friendship…
cresting the summit
together

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

moon shadow –
on my back the blurred halo
of my past

ombra di luna –
sulla mia schiena opaco
il mio passato

Luisa Santoro
Rome, Italy

 

her heart still beats…
rushing to answer
another’s prayer

Geetha Ravichandran
India

 

addiction—
white butterflies
painted on rocks

Terri L. French
U.S.

 

astrapia
admiring the length
of his tale

James Gaskin
Fukushima, Japan

 

but I am no god . . .
a tiny orchid grows
from my hand

Alfred Booth
Colombes, France

 

on her hands—
red written
poetry

Adele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut

 

already
too heavy
this war

Alex Fyffe
Texas, USA

 

former minefield –
the medicinal herbs
cover the holes

Daniela Lăcrămioara Capotă
Romania

 

one doctor to the next my daughter’s childhood

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA

 

moving mountains
I clear my mother’s house
of clutter

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

ancestors
the mountain
on my back

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

carrying parental expectations the unmaking of my self

Joe Sebastian
Bangalore, India

 

you and whose army
Hanuman hands Rama
the mountaintop

Kristen Lindquist
Camden, Maine, USA

 

moving
a mountain
strength of belief

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA

 

Neberdine Pharmaceuticals.
100% better than fresh air.

Mark Gilbert
UK

 

home alone . . .
Hanuman’s photo
in my fist

Aparna Pathak
Gurugram, India

 

last shred
of the exploded dawn…
now, focus

Luciana Moretto
Treviso – Italy

 

moon phases
my grief turns heavier
when she’s full

Kavya Janani. U
India

 

above the tree line
past lives evaporating
thyme still scents my hands

Amanda White
Morvah, Cornwall, UK

 

growing forest
for what ails us
haiku

Lorelyn Arevalo
Bombon, Philippines

 

faith and devotion
always ..
make things easier

Nani Mariani
Melbourne, Australia

 

snow flurries-
in my head
memories d r i f t i n g

Dorothy Burrows
United Kingdom

 

Hanuman!
ravaged by speculators
Adivasi cry for help

Hanamán!
creachta ag amhantraithe
tá treibheanna ag glaoch ort

Gabriel Rosenstock
Éire (Ireland)

 

raging winds
I sit on the edge
of my ego

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

evening breeze
the silent whisper
of the old gods

Marianne Sahlin
Sweden

 

slick streets to the ER
now signing
a DNR for her

Susan Farner
United States

 

Himalayan breeze
the aroma of lemongrass
from my qehwa

Hifsa Ashraf
Rawalpindi, Pakistan

 

ingesting
medicinal herbs—
theophany

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

stripped
of my former self
diagnosis

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA

 

reincarnation
a hanuman’s tail draws
in full circle

reïncarnatie
hanuman’s staart schildert
in volle sirkel

Christopher Calvin
Kota Mojokerto, Indonesia

 

sticking out a tongue
at the encircling army

Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton UK

 

heavy hope
guiding gram’s hospice hand
to her pharm book

Richard Matta
San Diego, California

 

healing herbs
carried by the wind
bansuri raag

maxianne berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

sanjivini booti
comatose peace
awaits in vain

(sanjivini booti is the herb Hanuman brings)

Vishnu Kapoor
Chennai, India

 

churning . . .
the burden
of past mistakes

Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia

 

calm water
the poet glides through
a mountain

Pat Davis
NH USA

 

Monkey King
escorting the Tang monk
journey to the west

护送唐玄奘
斩妖除魔赴西天
行者美猴王

hu song tang xuan zang
zan yao chu mo fu xi tian
xing zhe mei hou wang

Xiaoou Chen
Kunming, China

 

red sky
a bewitched mountain
is flowing into it

Mircea Moldovan
România

Guest Editor Pippa Phillips is a recovering academic who hails from Cape Cod. Her micropoetry has been published in a variety of publications, including Cold Moon Journal, Frogpond, Failed Haiku, Modern Haiku, and The Asahi Shimbun. She also writes long and short-form fiction. She is interested in the intersection of ethics and aesthetics and walking the line between the populist and the experimental. You can find her on Twitter @IpsaHerself and Instagram @pheaganesque.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

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