HAIKU DIALOGUE – All the World’s a Stage – Break a Leg

Thanks to Co-Guest Editors Sherry & Zoe Grant for another wonderful set of dream poems – such a great way to frame the end of the year & the beginning of another year! Now we welcome returning Guest Editor Alex Fyffe who takes us back to the world of the stage – happy writing! kj

All the World’s a Stage with Guest Editor Alex Fyffe

Welcome to our latest performance of Haiku Dialogue: All the World’s a Stage! Tonight’s program will begin shortly. Don’t forget to tell your favorite performers to break a leg! And let’s hope they don’t take you up on it – after all, tonight’s show is full of trap doors! That’s right: The inspiration for the next several weeks is once again going to come from theatrical terms. In the past, we’ve seen how terms like “intermission” and “curtain call” could inspire some bravura haiku, so we’re coming back on stage for an encore!

prompt: Break a Leg

“Break a leg!” We’ve all heard it. Most of us have probably even said it at some point in our lives. Of course, we know not to take it at face value, being an example of an idiom: a commonly used non-literal expression. We use idioms almost every day: “a dime a dozen;” “back to the drawing board;” “speak of the devil;” “bent out of shape;” “wrap my head around it.”

There are at least half a dozen theories about why it became so popular to wish performers to “break a leg,” but it is generally believed that it was bad luck to say, “Good luck,” leading people to ironically wish this specific kind of bad luck on performers so that things would actually turn out well for them, after all. And that’s why, in addition to being an idiom, this is also among the more famous uses of superstition, which, in this case, is a practice based on some trust in unknown causes or chance. Other examples of superstition include blowing on dice before rolling, saying “Bless you!” when someone sneezes, or knocking on wood (or simply saying, “Knock on wood”).

For this prompt, take inspiration from idioms and/or superstitions, theatrical or otherwise, to use in your own haiku. Find unique, interesting ways to incorporate idioms or superstitions from your own life experience. Additionally, you may wish to take inspiration from the expression “Break a leg” by illustrating a performer’s luck – good or bad.

The deadline is midnight Eastern Standard Time, Saturday January 25, 2025.

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. 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.

Join us next week for Alex’s selection of poems on the topic of Break a Leg…

Bios:

Guest Editor Alex Fyffe teaches high school English in the Houston area. His haiku and senryu have been published in various journals, including Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Failed Haiku, Akitsu Quarterly, and the Asahi Haikuist Network. Some of his favorite short form poets include Issa, whose work he discovered in the intermediate Japanese textbook he used while studying in Hikone, Japan, and Santoka, whose writing introduced him to the liberating concept of “freeform haiku.” Currently, Alex uses haiku in the classroom to ease students into poetry and build their confidence as readers and writers. Alex also posts haiku, including translations of contemporary Japanese haiku, on Twitter @AsurasHaiku.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

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

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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Photo Credit:

Banner photo credit:  “Interior of the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1874. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library.

Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.