The Haiku Foundation Forums

Don, in addition to writing haiku, I also write scifaiku. Are you looking for forms like science fiction haiku and horrorku as well or are you only focusing on variations within haiku itself?

Thanks for the clarification.

Julie B. K.

Congrats! I agree - it's never too late to celebrate. :)

Congrats! :)

7x20 is not a paying market, but they take - and encourage you to submit - previously published material. It's nice to see a market that accepts haiku (and scifaiku and other short form) reprints.

Congrats! :)

Congrats, Al!

Hi Don: Are poems posted to Twitter considered to be published or not? It wasn't clear to me from the submission guidelines.  Thanks!

Julie B K

Is Mango Moons still an active haiku journal?  I couldn't find current submission guidelines for it.  Thanks!

I just noticed that the results are posted - congrats to the winners!

Thanks, Don and Vida!  I don't know why it didn't occur to me to look for YouTube videos of readings.  That's an excellent idea.

Hugs to you, Chase.  Take care of yourself.

Touching back to devora's original question, I thought I should clarify why I found John's edit so powerful.

To me, Elizabeth Searle Lamb's original -- 

the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips

is a passive observation of the writer watching the child.  As a reader, we simply watch the child too, and the poem has no entry point.

However, John's suggested line break

the blind child --
reading my poem 
with her fingertips

opens a door for the reader.  Both the reader and the blind child are reading the poem now.  Since the child can not read the printed word, the poem must be in raised print or Braille.  And since I can't read Braille, the blind child must use her fingertips to guide my fingers over the bumpy Braille.  Her hands over mine provide an unexpected, active experience.  The writer (and reader) marvel at the feel of the poem in Braille.  Perhaps the writer recognizes -- in a very concrete way -- that without the reader, her words lie dormant on the page.  Whether or not this meets the definition of a haiku, this poem expresses a beautiful, intimate moment.

So, were I to critique this poem, I would agree with John and say that it suffers from a missing line break.

For those who found the poem "flat", so to speak, I hope this helps.

Wow, John, thanks for that rearrangement.  I saw this poem completely differently after your revision and liked it much better - it moved it from a passive experience to an active one.

Thanks, Don.  I wouldn't have thought to do that.  Is it standard practice to read the poems twice?  I've never heard anyone read haiku before so I didn't really know what I was doing.

Don, I don't see haiku as an "anything goes" style.  As a newbie to haiku, I can only say that for years, haiku meant nothing to me.  It was like reading a foreign language.  It was only after discovering scifaiku (science fiction haiku, for those unfamiliar) -- poems truly removed from any semblance of their Japanese heritage -- that I had an intimate "aha!" moment with a poem (ending in the line "eye to eyestalk" as I recall) that opened my eyes to haiku.  Once I saw what the form could do -- start on L1, lull you into complacency with L2, and then flip a 180 on L3 -- I fell in love with haiku.  So I came to haiku through scifaiku.  Without that experience, I wouldn't be happily reading along here now, learning about the history of this wonderful form, with a book about Basho at my bedside.  Different forms may speak to each of us, but I believe that there is something constant at the heart of haiku.